


into many a green valley drifts the appalling snow

by broi



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angry Sex, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Because Theon is a bit of a dick, Castration, Drinking, Drunk Sex, F/M, Feels, Femdom, Implied Slash, Impotence, Incest, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Mutilation, Oral Sex, POV Theon, Poor Theon, Pre-Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark, Prostitution, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Ramsay is his own warning, Sex, Sibling Incest, Slapping, Theon Greyjoy has serious issues, Theon Greyjoy is a disaster, Theon REALLY being a dick, Theon being a dick, Theon is the fucking Drowned God, Theon y u no just talk, Theon-centric, Threesome - M/M/M, Torture, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Verbal Humiliation, anger issues, asha being a BAMF, hints at anal fisting, hints at bdsm, hints at breathplay, hints at sexual violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:18:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8181427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broi/pseuds/broi
Summary: The undoing, and redoing, of Theon Greyjoy - a tale told in his relationships.





	1. Ros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Oi. Don’t laugh at me. My silver is as good as anybody’s. And you can call me Prince Theon, none of this ‘my lord’ shit. Do you know I’m a Prince of the Iron Islands?”_
> 
> _“Funny that. I thought you were Ned Stark’s hostage boy.”_
> 
> _Theon bristled in indignation. “Say that again and I’ll see to it you’re too ugly to even take copper off a peasant, whore.”_
> 
> _“Charming. I can’t imagine why you’d require the company of a prostitute to take your maidenhead when you’ve such a silver tongue.”_

It took Theon a long while to even knock the door. 

He hadn’t even the confidence that he’d come to the right place. The entrance was fairly unassuming, like any other in Winter Town, though he didn’t exactly know what he’d been expecting would discern it from any other establishment. A pair of great, carved tits as a door knocker, perhaps? Theon snorted a laugh at this thought, and that’s when he knew he was really nervous. 

_”Past the skinner’s and down the alley,”_ Jory Cassel had said. _”Ask for Ros. A redhead. She’ll give you a good tumble and act as she likes it.”_

“I don’t need to visit the brothel,” Theon had retorted. “I’ve got my pick of the girls in the kitchen. They’re all desperate for Ironborn cock.” 

“Are they, now? Which ones have you had?” 

“Don’t remember their names. Though I’d know their cunts if I had to tell you which was which.” 

Jory had laughed at that. “You’ve got balls, Theon Greyjoy, that’s for sure. But they’ll fall off if you don’t put that cock to better use than rutting about in anger at training with Jon Snow." 

Theon flushed red. “I put my cock to plenty good use, thank you.” 

“Course you do. That’s why you’re so calm and collected all the time. _Seven hells,_ Greyjoy: a good fuck now and again will get all that vexation out of you, and then you might actually get the best of Snow in the yard one of these days.” 

As much as it had irritated him, Theon could discern some sense in Jory’s words, and so he’d made his way to the kitchen and felt up some scullery maid with her tits hanging out. She’d been surprised, but Theon was high born and all the kitchen girls had heard the stories about men from the Iron Islands and what they could do with their cocks, so she gladly played along. 

Theon did not think it particularly important to inform her that he’d never actually been with a woman, just as he felt it unimportant to correct Jory Cassel, or Robb, or Jon, or anybody else who assumed his stories of fingering and fucking were in any way anything other than _stories_. 

_”I don’t like how you talk about girls,_ ” Jon would say. _”It’s not honourable.”_

_”It’s not honourable what I do to them, neither,”_ Theon smirked, _”but they seem to like it.”_

Robb would shake his head despairingly, but with a smile. _”Seven hells, Greyjoy. You’re insatiable.”_

(Something about Robb saying “insatiable” sent Theon mad for a few nights after that. He muttered the word to himself in the dark as he pulled at his cock, as though Robb was saying it, again and again and again. _Insatiable. Insatiable. Insatiable._ ) 

“Lord Greyjoy, you do me an honour, m’lord,” panted the dumb kitchen bitch as he fumbled her tits from her tunic. 

“Mayhaps, don’t speak,” said Theon. 

“Oh, yes, m’lord.” 

_This would not do,_ Theon thought. His cock was not behaving the way that it should. He’d pulled it through the lacing of his breeches expecting it to stand to its duty, but instead it hung there quite miserably, as though it were apologising for itself. He glanced at the face of his woman, her eyes closed in anticipation. She was not the prettiest of girls by any stretch. 

“Mayhaps, turn around,” said Theon. 

“Oh, yes, m’lord.” 

_This was better,_ Theon thought. _This, he could work with._ He pressed himself up against her, hitching her skirts around her waist. She groaned and said, “Oh, m’lord!” in such a stupid manner that Theon almost wanted to choke her silent. She was not helping the situation with his cock one bit, and the more he rubbed it on her arse, willing it to harden, the more it seemed to shrink and retreat like a frightened mouse. 

“By the _fucking_ Drowned God,” muttered Theon. 

“Ooh, your Ironborn Gods are so exotic!” said the girl, and that became the last thing Theon could endure. He pushed her aside and ran a hand through his hair, furious and frustrated. She turned around and looked at his crotch. “Oh, m’lord – do you want me to touch it? Will that make it ready? I could suck it too, if it please m’lord." 

“No, it does not please my lord,” replied Theon, his face burning with embarrassment. He jabbed at his breeches, stuffing his miserable cock away within. “You stupid girl, if you’d have just shut up and let me concentrate, or if you had a face that did not resemble slapped lard, then you might have been deemed worthy of my manhood. You’re lucky you don’t get a bastard on you just looking at it. Now fuck off.” 

It had taken a week for Theon to get from this point to the brothel’s front door. It hadn’t been a sudden decision. More than anything, it had been born from tortured thoughts of how that fucking kitchen maid would tell it around that Theon Greyjoy was more sponge than iron, and that if he didn’t sort things out soon and rectify the issue by fucking a few of the other girls before the news could spread, he’d never salvage his reputation. 

Visiting the brothel, then, was nothing more than a means to an end. He’d fuck this Ros, or whatever her name was, get it done and out of the way, and then he wouldn’t have a problem with any of the girls at Winterfell. 

He didn’t know why he had a problem in the first place, really. When he’d turned her around and hadn’t had to look upon her ogre’s face, that kitchen girl had an acceptable figure. It was a bit too curvaceous for his liking – he preferred a straighter, leaner figure with broader shoulders – and he didn’t like blondes at all (he preferred red heads, or hair so brown it was almost black) but it wasn’t entirely awful. 

_Oh, Prince Theon,_ he thought as he finally knocked the brothel’s door, _what in Seven Hells is wrong with you?_

When he’d managed to choke out that he’d like to see “R – R – Ros” (first his cock deserts him, and now his wits), he’d been taken by a dead-eyed raven-haired girl with some foreign accent (Volantis? Braavosi? She’s far North) to a back room with a door ajar, candlelight flickering from within.

“Ros there,” the raven-headed girl said. “You give silver her. All night is yours.”

“Thank you,” said Theon stupidly. _Thank you?_ They should be thanking _me._

Theon was pleased to see that Ros had red hair. And it was curly. Theon made a mental note to personally pour Jory Cassel’s ale the next feast.

She was sitting at a table facing away from him, fastening up her auburn tresses with small pins. She wore nothing on top. Theon stood in the doorway for a long moment, wondering what exactly it was he was supposed to do. This made him quickly uncomfortable, which then as it always did, made him prickly with irritation. 

“Excuse me,” he intoned.

Ros didn’t move from her seat. She fastened another pin to her hair.

“I said, excuse me!” Theon sighed impatiently. “Hello?”

Slowly, she turned to face him. She had a plain face, which Theon was glad of, really, as he didn’t want a beautiful one in case it put him off or made him too quick. But although her face was plain, it was also strangely expressive, and her eyes spoke to him in a way that both excited and unsettled him at once. He could feel her gaze taking him in, working him out. Was she thinking about what he had underneath his breeches?

“I know you,” she said slowly, which Theon did not expect.

“I doubt it,” he said. _Fuck._ He knew this had been a bad idea, coming here. He made a mental note to pour Jory Cassel’s ale in his lap the next feast.

“No, I do. You’re from Winterfell. I used to be a serving wench there, before I worked out there was far better coin to be made down here. You’re that boy from Pyke. Theon Greyjoy.”

“I’m not a boy.”

“No. You are not a boy, Theon Greyjoy. Not any longer.” She rose from her chair, walked easily to Theon as though gliding on ice. “What brings a high born Lord’s son to a Winter Town brothel?”

“It’s – I –“ 

Ros snaked a hand around Theon’s waist, pulling him closer to her. Her nipples grazed Theon’s tunic. “Don’t worry, sweetling. I will take good care of you, as soon as I’ve worked out exactly what it is that you need.”

“What I need?”

“Everybody who comes here needs something, my Lord. Often it is something they themselves don’t even realise.”

Theon pressed his hips forward into hers, because that’s what he assumed he should do. “I know what I need, whore. That’s why I’ve come to a fucking brothel. I need a good fuck.”

Ros smiled at the floor. It was clear to Theon that she was stifling a laugh.

“Oi. Don’t _laugh_ at me. My silver is as good as anybody’s. And you can call me Prince Theon, none of this ‘my lord’ shit. Do you know I’m a Prince of the Iron Islands?”

“Funny that. I thought you were Ned Stark’s hostage boy.”

Theon bristled in indignation. “Say that again and I’ll see to it you’re too ugly to even take copper off a peasant, whore.”

“Charming. I can’t imagine why you’d require the company of a prostitute to take your maidenhead when you’ve such a silver tongue.”

“My – my _maidenhead_? You fucking bitch, I lost that moons ago, lost it a million times since – surprised there aren’t fifteen and ten bastards running ‘round Winter Town by now, I’ve done it that many times—”

“He who protests too much…”

This _fucking_ whore! Why had Theon even come here? He needed to do the deed, quickly, and get out. This had been a horrendous idea. “I don’t pay you to speak,” he muttered, unlacing his breeches with a trembling hand. “I pay you to be fucked. Lie on the bed.”

Ros raised an eyebrow, but did as she was commanded. At least she knew her place, knew what Theon’s silver was good for. Theon took himself next to her, choosing not to acknowledge how awkwardly he lay. “Shall I get on with my duty, then?” Ros asked. “Only – I’m not sure _my Prince_ is quite ready.”

Theon felt his face flush red. _Absolutely typical. I spend my life concealing the countless erections that plague every possible situation, awkward or otherwise, within an average day, yet here I am again for the second time: in need of one, a _good_ one, and the fucking thing lies there as limp as a fish in a bucket._

“Do something sexy, then,” said Theon. “Go on. How am I meant to get – to get _hard_ if you just lie there _talking?_ ”

“Oh, Prince Theon,” sighed Ros, knowingly. She ran a soft hand up his thigh. “I remember you well. Always smiling, always first with the remark everybody wishes they could have devised . What has happened to you? You have such a clever mouth, that if only you’d accept tuition, you’d realise that talking could be your greatest weapon.”

“I don’t need tuition. I’m not a boy.”

“You know, you and I would get along much better if you allowed yourself to relax—”

“-- I’m plenty relaxed—”

“—because then you might shake off that Iron Islands-sized chip on your shoulder just enough to start enjoying yourself.” 

_Did she even know who she was talking to? Theon hadn’t paid good money for her to insult his lineage, ridicule his prowess and mock his manhood! It was just a shame he couldn’t discern a sharp enough retort to put her in her place, because each time he tried, he sounded more and more like a petulant child._

“Well, go on then,” muttered Theon. “I’ve paid you for the night and you seem in no hurry to use that cunt of yours, so you may as well use your mouth. How’d you suggest I enjoy myself?”

Ros slapped Theon on the thigh, hard.

“ _Fuck!_ ” yelled Theon. “What did you do that for?”

“You can stop talking to women like that, which is your first of today’s lessons. And unless you want me to leave more finger marks on that princely, pale thigh of yours, you’d do well to listen to the rest.”

If he was completely honest, Theon felt a little as though he _wanted_ more finger marks on his thigh. Now that the initial horrid shock had throbbed and faded, there was something about the pulsating red slap that excited him. Something about the heat, and the cool air’s cold comfort afterward. Something about being kept in his place. Something about not being allowed to let his mouth run away with him—

_”No, you are not using my arrows, Snow. These are a Prince’s arrows. The bastard’s arrows are back in the armoury.”_

_Jon’s fist was in Theon’s collar. “Say that word again and I’ll knock the teeth from your head.”_

_”Touchy today, Snow? Is it your moon’s blood?”_

_”Enough, Greyjoy.” Robb’s voice. Deep and measured. His Lord’s voice. “Leave off him, Jon.”_

_After Jon released him, Theon muttered, "I don’t need your help, Robb.”_

_”I wasn’t giving you my help. I was giving you a command.”_

\--“Oh, so that’s your thing?” Ros smiled. Theon didn’t know what she meant for a moment, until she nodded towards his cock. Not so much a limp fish anymore. 

“My _thing_?”

“Pain. Don’t worry, m’lord: it’s quite normal. To be honest I was expecting you to be much more perverse than that.”

“Per -- _perverse_? Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The way you order people about. And there’s a look you get in your eye sometimes, as though you may not be able to help what you might do.”

Theon swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. _I do feel like that, sometimes,_ he thought. But it was never at the right times. It certainly wasn’t when he was with that girl from the kitchens, and he didn’t feel it now, even though Ros still ran her hands up and down his thigh with her fantastic tits just, sort of unapologetically _there_ …no, Theon felt completely in control of himself. 

But he knew exactly what she meant.

“Am I a disappointment, then?” said Theon, and the instant the words left his mouth he knew he hadn’t crafted a smirk convincing enough to disguise his actual anxiety in bravado. 

“Far from it, my Lord. In fact, it is a welcome change to enlighten, rather than to entertain those who already think they know best.”

“I’m not green.”

Ros smiled. Her hand trailed across Theon’s thigh to his groin, up the underside of his balls, and along the smooth shaft of his cock. Theon’s breath hitched and his cock jerked into Ros’s touch. “I never said you were, my Lord. Are you ready for your second lesson?”

“Depends,” replied Theon, whose breath had quickened a little too rapidly for his liking. “Are you going to continue teaching me things I already know?”

“Depends,” said Ros. “Are you going to remember lesson one, where I politely asked you to be a little more gracious towards women?”

 _Slap._

His other thigh this time, and Theon gasped in pain. A gasp that fell away into a hollow moan.

“Good little lord,” whispered Ros, her tone appreciative. Theon didn’t know why, but he felt a rush of pride at having pleased her. She’d noticed as well, as her smile twisted into an amused smirk. “Oh, you _are_ going to enjoy this.”

Theon didn’t doubt it.

Ros rose from her place at the foot of Theon’s bed to straddle his shins. Both her hands were on his thighs now. “Lesson two, Lord Greyjoy, is to know what you want.”

“Oh, I know what I want.”

“You _think_ you know what you want. All boys do. But they only think they want it because they don’t know what else there is _to_ want.”

Emboldened by the fact that he seemed to be actually maintaining his erection for once, Theon sat up and grasped Ros’s backside, pulling her towards him. “I want your cunt around my cock. Is that a good place to start?”

“It is if you only enjoy watching tourneys to see the champion crowned. Myself, I much favour the events themselves…the _jousting_ \--” Ros took the shaft of Theon’s cock in her hand, “—the _swordplay_ …”

“A woman -- _ah_ \-- a woman couldn’t handle my sword,” breathed Theon.

“This woman seems to handle it well enough.”

“Then it’s -- _fuck_ \-- it’s my arrows you should watch out for. There is no better bowman in Winterfell. _Gods_ …” Ros pulled at Theon’s cock in a steady rhythm, and it felt so different, so good, compared to when he handled himself. Her fingers were long and soft – no callouses from a sword or dents from a bow – and there was something so fucking incredible about how huge his cock looked in her small, delicate hand. She’d have to stop otherwise he’d finish, and that would possibly be worse than his limp-cocked disaster with the kitchen girl. “I’d skewer you with my arrow,” panted Theon, “shot fair and true…it’d plough through you like a… _fuck_ , stop, stop…”

Ros released his cock, held her hands up in surrender. “Good, my little Lord. You have already learned lesson two and a half. Know what you want, and _don’t_ get side-tracked by things along the way, no matter how good they may feel.”

“I don’t know _what_ I want anymore,” murmured Theon honestly. He had never realised that it would be a problem, deciding how to spend. He had supposed one just _did it_ , wherever and whenever one felt the need, when in reality the choice was agony. Her mouth was an option. Theon had heard girls favour it that way, too, because they did not have to bother with moon tea, and he had also heard that a man’s seed tasted very sweet, like honey. _Had_ he heard that, or was it something he had assumed? Either way, he doubted she would refuse as he was paying for it, and if he wanted to finish in her mouth, he would tell her that he would finish in her mouth.

But if he finished in her mouth, he could not finish inside her cunt. And since he didn’t know what that would feel like (any more than he knew what her mouth would feel like), he was technically unable to make a balanced decision. What if he chose the wrong option? What if there was some better feeling than whichever he picked? Jory Cassel used to tell him about a whore in Winter Town who’d let him spend across her face. _”Game for anything, she was,”_ he’d say. _”Ever put your seed on a girl’s face before, Greyjoy? Nothing like it._ ”

 _”Plenty times,_ ” Theon had bragged. And later that night and for several moons after, he’d handled himself to thoughts of parted, swollen lips, of curled hair – sometimes it was a russet colour; other times it was dark, almost black – and whilst he never really imagined a face, he always saw his seed splashed across skin as clear as though it were before him. And by the Drowned God, did he spill _hard_ those nights.

“Lesson three, little Prince,” Ros was saying. She was kissing his neck now, breathing into his ear. Theon circled a curl of auburn hair in his fingers and felt as though he may explode. “Once you know what you want, be a master in taking it.”

“But you said not to rush. The tourney isn’t just about the champion, you said.”

“I did. But no woman wants to do all the work either, just as no Lord should sit his chair and turn to stone whilst life unfolds about him.”

Theon ran his whole hand into her red curls. _Gods,_ he couldn’t get enough of her hair. Not what he’d been expecting to find most arousing about the whole experience, but there it was: undeniable. “Sit on my cock, then,” he whispered into her ear.

“Try again,” Ros whispered back. “You can do better.”

“Well, I don’t know! Suck it or something! You’re the whore; it’s why I _pay you._ ” Theon did wish he could be a little less petulant, but he felt affronted (and more than a little embarrassed), so what other choice was there? She could jolly well—“ _OUCH!_ Seven _fucking_ hells…”

Ros released Theon’s nipple and looked him dead in the eye. “Do we need to return to lesson one?”

 _You’ll learn a lesson when you’re choking on my cock,_ thought Theon callously. _That’d shut you up._ And then Theon thought, in the smallest, tiniest voice in his head, _a day ago you couldn’t even get hard, you green fool. Pay a whore a piece of silver and everything changes? Who the fuck do you think you are?_

“Apologies, my lady,” said Theon haltingly. 

“Then you are ready for lesson four.”

“Is lesson four how to fuck your cunt? Because I think I’m about to sail to the top of the class.”

Ros smiled. “Lesson four is how to please a woman.”

“I know how to please a woman,” Theon smirked. “You’ve felt what’s between my legs. It ought to please you just looking at it.” 

“I don’t need to know what’s between your legs. I can see that just fine. What I want to know is your secrets. You have other parts, Theon Greyjoy.” Ros lifted a finger to his lips, tracing their outline, and gently prised his lips apart. Instinctively, Theon took her into his mouth, sucking slowly, flicking the end of her fingertip with his tongue. A slow smile spread across Ros’s face. “Very good, little Lordling. If ever you decide to explore beyond what women can provide for you, rest assured you would be in high demand as a fine cocksucker.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” said Theon in his commanding voice, but since Ros’s finger was in his mouth (and since he was enjoying it being there so much), the effect was somewhat lost. 

“Lesson three: be a master of taking what you want. Lesson four: know how to pleasure a woman.”

Theon wished Ros would stop talking in riddles, because it was difficult to solve them when the blood required by his brain to function seemed to prefer it in his cock. He pushed himself up, throwing Ros backwards onto the bed where she fell with a throaty laugh. 

“Oh, Prince Theon,” she said. “Will you be gentle?”

Theon frowned. “Are you mocking me?”

“Theon. We’ve worked so hard to get that chip off your shoulder. Don’t wear it again now, for fuck’s sake. I need release as much as you do. Now, are you going to play along nicely, or are you going to be an angry little boy? Because I do not fuck angry little boys, regardless of how much of their father’s silver they give me.”

She hadn’t slapped him with her hand that time, but going on how the red flush in his face felt, she might as well have done. 

“Spread your legs,” said Theon. “I’m going to show you how a man pleasures a woman.”

“ _Better_ ….” murmured Ros, smiling, as Theon knelt before her and took her cunt between his lips.

He had never seen one before, never mind touched one, and never mind _mouthed_ one as he was doing now – was that what it was called? Mouthing it? Theon didn’t know but it seemed to be the best description – and so he had little idea what he was doing, but he was a good listener, and every time Ros moaned a little louder, or bucked into his mouth, he concentrated on whatever part or whatever movement he had executed in that moment, and she moaned louder still. 

It was so _wet_ , wetter than he’d imagined it would be, but he liked it. It didn’t taste bad. The worst part of it all was that his neck began to stiffen, but when he had gone to pull away, Ros had fisted her hand in his hair and growled “ _don’t you dare!_ ” at him so fiercely that he thought it best to risk a sore neck than anything Ros may do to him, and he had dutifully returned to his task.

He kept thinking, _she’s a whore. She’s paid to enjoy it._ But Theon was Theon, and he couldn’t help but allow other thoughts to snake their way into his brain. _I’m the best she’s ever had,_ he imagined, and he believed it too. _Next time I fuck her, she won’t even accept my money. She won’t even lie with other men; they’d be too much of a disappointment. Theon Greyjoy’s personal whore._ He hadn’t even realised his hand had found its way around his cock until he groaned into Ros’s cunt and she hissed, _”Yes—”_ and bucked into his mouth with a shuddering tremble that seemed to go on for an age. 

Theon sat up and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. She lay there, legs spread and cunt swollen and pink, head thrown back so that Theon couldn’t quite discern her expression or even see her face. He saw her hair though, tumbled about her shoulders in red waves, and in that second he knew _exactly_ what he wanted.

“Turn around,” he said quietly. 

“Oh, my lord!” Ros muttered flirtatiously, “it seems you have decided to—”

“I _said_ , turn around.”

Theon took a grasp of Ros’s thigh and flipped her onto her front. His hands seized her buttocks and pulled her hips upwards towards him. His cock, glistening and red, rested gently on the cleft of her arse. He knew he was being rough. He couldn’t stop it. She’d said it herself. _There’s a look you get in your eye sometimes, as though you may not be able to help what you might do._ She’d even told him to take what he wanted. _Lesson three._ He would never be a Lord, turning to stone in his chair. He was Ironborn. Ironborn take what is theirs. 

But Theon wasn’t unkind. (Not then.) 

“I’m going to fuck you, my lady,” he said. 

“I supposed you might,” Ros replied, her voice breathy (with need and desire, thought Theon).

Theon didn’t know why, but before he put his cock inside her he took hold of her long, auburn curls and bunched them up in his hand. It was almost as though she had a boy’s head of hair. _Gods,_ how his cock ached. With his free hand he positioned himself at her opening, tracing her cunt with the tip of his manhood, watching the curve of her arse keen backwards towards him. Theon wished he’d thought of her arse earlier. He could finish himself there. His cock in her arse and his hand in her hair – her red, curly hair. 

_”Tell Mother I shan’t allow the Septa to cut it,”_ said Robb in Theon’s mind. _”I like it like this.”_

 _”You’re just copying your bastard brother is all,”_ Jory Cassel replied with a laugh. _”Never saw a girl he loved more than his own hair, that one._ ”

 _”I won’t cut it,”_ said Robb, and with a groan Theon pushed himself inside Ros, and thanked the Gods for days afterwards that he was able to last a clear minute before he pulled out from her and finished all over her arse, pulling the cheeks apart, as his seed dripped down across the tight hole there, down over her cunt and onto the furs on the bed. 

“You certainly discovered what it is you want,” Ros was saying to Theon as he laced up his boots afterwards. She was sitting in a chair, turning Theon’s piece of silver between her fingers, regarding him with a new interest that he’d not noticed in her yet. 

And Theon did not like it.

“Thank you for your time, my lady,” he said stiltedly. 

Ros raised an eyebrow. “You speak as though this is to be our first and final encounter, Lord Greyjoy.”

“Well, you admittedly have helped me with my—with my little problem. I shouldn’t need to visit a brothel again. I’m _highborn._ Highborn lords don’t visit brothels.”

“You’d be surprised.” Ros regarded him coolly. Although fully dressed, Theon felt naked. “I don’t often find pleasure in my work,” she continued. “Not that much pleasure, anyway. I’m certainly not afforded the pleasure of release like you did me, Theon Greyjoy. It would be a shame for us to not explore it further.”

“I can’t marry you. You’re a whore.”

Ros’s laugh was loud and long. “Oh, my little Lord! I don’t want to marry you. I simply want you to suck my cunt like that again.”

“Oh.”

“And, if I’m not mistaken, there are other things you would like to explore, too.”

Theon flushed. “I – I don’t know what you mean.”

“Even the strongest of men lose themselves when they spend. I have lain with lords who would betray every bannerman in a breath the minute they start to come.” She rose from her chair, walked slowly over to Theon, who could feel a thin bead of sweat trickling down his temple. “I have sucked the cocks of Sers who’ve spilled their battle plans as quickly as they spilled their seed. I hear everything, my Prince. Do you know whose name you moaned as your seed filled my cunt?”

Theon felt sick. His heart was racing too fast in his chest. He felt his head start to spin.

“Oh, you know exactly which name you moaned, don’t you, my Lord?” Ros stood on tiptoe to whisper in Theon’s ear. “You _are_ an interesting boy. And your secret is safe. Think of me as a confidant, if you will. You don’t need to hide yourself from me, Theon. Let me help you. I can be whoever you want me to be.”

“ _By the Drowned God,_ ” muttered Theon, his voice unsteady, “if you tell a soul, I shall burn down this brothel with you inside it.”

“I shan’t. By the old Gods and the new, I swear it.”

Theon pressed a second piece of silver into Ros’s palm. “For your trouble.” 

“My lord.”

And Theon left, telling himself that he would not visit again – not because he would be unable to look Ros in the face, of course, but because he was above such things as to use brothels when he had a string of perfectly ripe kitchen girls to enjoy – but knowing that he would go back later that week, because none of the kitchen girls had Robb’s hair, and none of them had Jon’s pretty lips or fiery eyes. 

And none of them knew what a dirty, perverse little freak he was – 

\-- where Ros did.


	2. Jon Snow and Robb Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **The undoing, and redoing, of Theon Greyjoy - a story told in his relationships.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter 2: Jon Snow and Robb Stark
> 
>  
> 
> _To think, there had been a time, not all that long ago, that Theon thought he’d never get hard, let alone be in a situation where he’d be so hard for so long that it _hurt._ He knew he had Ros to thank for that: Ros, and the hours and hours she’d talked to him, held him, stroked him as he confessed everything, milked his seed from him muttering the things she knew he wanted to hear. _”We love you, Theon Greyjoy, Jon and me. We love you, Robb and me.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lap up the porn and the happy whilst they last, folks. Things take a downward turn for poor Theon next chapter.

It took Theon a long while to even knock the door.

Though, admittedly, this was because he’d fumbled with the latch for a good few minutes, cursing and blustering, until he remembered that this was Jon Snow’s chamber and he probably shouldn’t just go letting himself in. Common courtesy and all that. Nothing to do with the fact that he was too drunk to discern how a latch operated. Nothing whatsoever at all.

“Snoooow….” moaned Theon through the darkness. “Your door does not work.” 

Silence. Could Theon even be sure that Jon was actually within? He supposed he must be, for that was the arrangement they’d made earlier that night – Theon could never be so drunk as to forget that – and also, where would Snow go? He wasn’t allowed at the feast (Lady Catelyn had called it and if Theon were Ned, he’d go along with whatever she said too, for the most part) and he hadn’t been in the yard when Theon had stopped there to take a piss. And the yard had been busy, too. One of the sons of some Northern lord had taken a serving girl into the shadows behind the great wood store and had her spread across the cut logs, arse in the air and tits squashed against the wood, fucking her. Theon had laced his breeches back up and smirked appreciatively at the man as he passed.

“ _Greyjoy,_ ” the man nodded curtly. Theon licked his lips as he watched the girl keen back onto the cock that thrust her.

“Give her one from me,” Theon replied, “though watch out for splinters.”

As he crossed the yard, it suddenly struck him that he needed to see Jon, and he needed to see him _immediately._ The feast had gone on some, and had been a good jest at that, but the more wine he’d had the more his cock started to throb, and there was only so much pushing a serving girl round his lap could satisfy him, especially when they started thinking they were going to get a good seeing-to out of him.

“This is ironborn cock,” Theon had explained patiently, as though his point was the most obvious in the world. 

“Yes, it is, m’lord!” she replied, handling it through his breeches. Theon grabbed her wrist and pressed it harder into his groin, grinding to meet her touch. “Pure _iron_ it is, m’lord…”

 _Fuck,_ how badly Theon needed to spend. It would have been so easy to take her around the back of the out-store, past the kitchen, flip her skirt and see himself off. What a waste that would be, though, when Theon knew what he would be rewarded with come the end of the feast, if only he could avoid temptation.

 _Know what you want,_ Ros always said. _Know what you want, and _don’t_ get side-tracked by things along the way, no matter how good they may feel._

“This is ironborn cock, and therefore, not to be wasted on a silly little girl.” He pushed the serving wench off his lap. “Pour me more wine, will you? I shouldn’t have to ask.”

 

Theon smiled to himself as he crossed the yard, leaving the young nobleman and his conquest in the shadows. She was a good friend, old Ros the clever whore. Theon owed her a lot, far more than coin; he could throw silver at her as easily as pebbles from the shore back on Pyke. No, what she’d given Theon was far greater than any silver could purchase. 

_She’d given him Jon Snow and Robb Stark._

Theon hissed into the darkness again. “Snoooow. Fucking wake up and let me in. I’m desperate to piss.”

A long, fed-up sigh from within the room drew from Theon a lopsided smirk of delight.

“I can hear you, bastard. I know you’re awake. Be a good boy, respect your elders and let me in.”

A pause. Then a voice said, “Just push the door, you idiot.”

Theon stared offended at the door, as though it itself was to blame for his own drunken incompetence. “ _Just push the door, you idiot,_ ” Theon said in Jon’s voice, a step or two lower than his own. Then he snorted a laugh at his own mimicry as it was rather good, and that’s when Theon first supposed that he was indeed, quite drunk.

He gave the door an almighty shove and came barrelling through straight afterward, with almost enough force to supplant him from his feet. Jon was sitting up in bed, squinting as he lit the candle next to where he lay, before his eyes met Theon’s. Theon straightened up, thoroughly caught out as light from the candle filled the room, and giggled.

“Seven hells,” said Jon.

“Hello, Snow,” drawled Theon. Drowned _God,_ was he seductive when he’d had a few. Come to think of it, Theon had always wondered what it would be like to fuck himself. Though he didn’t doubt it would be the best he’d ever had, he also supposed it would not be entirely pleasant as he’d seen the way Robb walked sometimes the day after they’d had one of their rougher nights. 

It took Theon a moment of grinning inanely at Jon before he fully took in the cold stare in Snow’s eyes, and the clench of his jaw he always did when he was cross, but too stubborn or brooding to say anything about it. Theon’s stomach sank a little, as he’d sort of expected Jon to fling back the furs on his bed, cock at full mast, and invite him in with reckless abandon. Instead, Jon used his most bastardly, humourless voice to say, “Where the hell have you been?” 

“At the feast,” replied Theon, surprised. Had Jon forgotten their plan? Theon and Robb would go to the feast as Lady Stark bade them to, like good little Lordlings, and then when they were able, they would steal away to Jon’s chamber and make up for the fact that he’d not been there to take part himself. It didn’t seem like Jon would forget their plan. Even Theon hadn’t forgotten their plan, and he’d consumed five – no, _six_ \- wineskins and he was sure there’d been some sort of ale game with Jory Cassel and some of the lads from the forge. He’d lost that ale game. Or won it, depending on how you looked at it, because ultimately he got to consume the most ale. 

“I know that.” 

_Jon._ Theon had nearly forgotten about Jon. Which, in honesty, was a _crime_. And probably the second indication – since outside Jon’s door - that Theon was perhaps drunker than he’d first presumed. “What do you know, sorry?”

“I know that you were at the feast, you drunken idiot. You said you’d come hours ago.”

Theon’s eyes raked over Jon’s body, almost realising for the first time that Jon was in _bed_ and Jon did not have any undershirt on. “Are you naked under those furs, Jon Snow?”

“Stop it.”

Theon took a few, only slightly, unsteady steps forward. What was that banging at his hip? Oh! “Come on, Snow. Cheer up. Look – I’ve brought wine.” Theon unhitched the wineskin from his belt and threw it to Jon, who caught it and set it down next to his bed. 

“I don’t want wine. You’ve just woken me up.”

Theon draped himself over Jon’s bed, his fingers grazing Jon’s face a little more roughly than was his intent. “That’s not my fault, Snow. _You_ were meant to stay awake for us.”

“I did stay awake. For hours. Eventually I became bored of waiting for you to finish fucking whatever whore caught your eye at –”

Theon stuck out his bottom lip. “Oh, don’t be such a petulant _boy._ It doesn’t suit you. Well, actually, it _does._ How dare you look so pretty when in such a bad mood? Come on, Snow – kiss me.”

“Leave off, Greyjoy. I don’t know where your mouth has been tonight.”

Theon felt a pang of hurt, which was the third moment when he realised he was a lot drunker than he had presumed he was. Defences fully armed, he’d have countered a jab like that with something equally spiky. All he could muster, though, was a slack-jawed expression of indignation. “Fuck you, Jon. I could have had my pick of the women tonight. Dripping, they were. As always. Can’t blame them. But, shame – none of them had your pretty hair or cocksucking mouth, or those eyes of Robb’s. So fuck them, and fuck you.”

Jon paused. “Sorry. It’s hard sitting up here when you two are out there enjoying yourselves, playing at being lords.”

“Fucking right it’s hard. I can feel it through the furs. Come on, Jon. Let me suck you off. Nearly spent in my breeches, been thinking about it all night.” 

Now Theon _knew_ he was really drunk. It was Jon and Robb’s place to be begging for cock, not his. He _provided_ the cock. That was his _role_. But he was so fucking hard and all he had to do was pull back the furs and Jon’s lovely, pretty manhood would appear, just waiting to be swallowed deep down the back of Theon’s throat. He groaned, reaching out for the furs, but Jon’s hand slapped him away.

“Theon. Not without Robb, you know that.”

“ _So unfair._ ” 

Jon grinned, and all at once Theon knew he wasn’t in trouble. _Fucking hell_. The relief. “Be patient, Greyjoy. Where is Robb?”

“Downstairs, still with his Lord’s face on, though it’s slipping the more he drinks. Come on, Snow. Just let me touch—”

“Robb can handle his wine. Not like some people. He’ll be fine.”

Theon snorted a smirking laugh. “Course he will. Though you didn’t see him. If you had, you’d know why I’m so hard. An hour ago everything was still _“If it please your ladyship”_ and all that. When I left him just now his face was flushed pinker than the head of my cock and he was talking to me with his eyes, you know how he does.”

Theon felt Jon twitch beneath the furs. His strong hands snaked up Theon’s thighs, across his hips. He pulled Theon tighter into his lap and murmured, “I know exactly how he does.”

“Does this mean I’m forgiven for turning up so late and so drunk? Snow, I’m honoured. Because there’s no point pretending, is there, really? I have had a lot of wine tonight. And I _like it._ ”

“Depends, Greyjoy, on whether you two will be able to make it up to me.” Jon leaned forwards, his lips grazing Theon’s cheek, his rough stubble, and down to the curve of his jawline where it met his neck. “That’s if Robb isn’t still too busy being the little Lordling, of course.”

Theon groaned as Jon’s breath ghosted his ear. “Gonna come all over Lord Stark’s serious fucking face; that’ll ruin the mask,” he said, brazen. “You can fuck his arse and I’ll have his mouth ‘til he begs for our seed. Teach him to be late for us.”

Jon smiled, his hand tangling in Theon’s hair, pulling tight. “You were late too, Greyjoy.”

“ _Ouch!_ Not as late as Robb. Gods, Jon. Pull my hair again. Are you naked under those furs, Snow? Fuck. Been thinking about you all night, you know.”

“Have you.” 

“Don’t believe me, then.” Theon rolled onto his back, which he knew was a bad idea as soon as he’d done it as the room seemed to tip backwards upon itself within his sight, and his ankles felt somehow as though they were floating upwards, higher than his head. “Urgh,” he muttered. Above him, an upside-down Jon grinned. “All right, all right. Give us a hand, will you?”

Jon grasped Theon’s wrist and pulled him upwards so that he was sitting upright, between Jon’s legs in his lap. “Thinking about me before, after or during the vat of wine?”

“All three, my lady.”

“Shut up,” said Jon. After a pause, he added, “It’s nice to know that the feast was much improved without Ned Stark’s bastard boy lowering the tone.”

Theon rolled his eyes, leaning back onto Jon’s chest. “We couldn’t not go, Jon.”

Jon sighed. “I know.”

“I’ve been so hard all night. Can’t stop thinking about you.”

“You’ve mentioned that once or twice,” murmured Jon, a slight smile on his lips. He ran a hand through Theon’s hair, and immediately Theon relaxed back into Jon’s chest.

“So fucking hard. You had better be proud I didn’t fling my seed up one of those kitchen girls, you know, just to sort myself out. If you’d been there, Robb and me…well, we’d have fucked you across the table, by the old Gods and the new, and the fucking Drowned God and all, I swear it. I’d have had your arse raw.”

“Course you would.”

Theon closed his eyes, grinning at the thought. He always preferred having Jon’s arse, because that way, he could watch Jon suck Robb off. Jon’s mouth was so fucking pretty as it was, but it improved tenfold when filled with Robb’s cock. The image of him bending Lord Eddard’s bastard over the feasting table flashed across Theon’s vision: Robb’s cock in Jon’s mouth like a stuck pig, whilst the whole of Winterfell and its citizens stood aghast. He giggled involuntarily, then groaned. “Jon. I cannot lie. I am as is a two-copper whore when the Ironborn dock home: _fucked_.”

Jon smiled into Theon’s neck. “How much have you had, Greyjoy?” he laughed.

“Some,” replied Theon evasively, though he knew his lopsided smirk betrayed him. “A fair share.” _Though, certainly not enough. Not yet, anyway._ “Here, pass me that wineskin and get a hand around my fucking cock. What are you, a maiden? It’s aching, Snow. Sort it out.”

“Whose fault is that? You should have come up earlier.” 

“I’m not in your chamber for a lecture,” replied Theon, though his tone was not unkind. He could feel Jon’s cock pressing into the cleft of his arse which, through two furs and Theon’s breeches, was really quite impressive. For all Jon’s bastardly moaning, he wanted it – needed it – as much as Theon did. “Come on, Snow. Do as you’re told.”

Jon passed Theon the wineskin with one hand and fisted Theon’s cock through his breeches with the other. Theon bucked into Jon’s grip; he couldn’t help himself. To think, there had been a time, not all that long ago, that Theon thought he’d never get hard, let alone be in a situation where he’d be so hard for so long that it _hurt._ He knew he had Ros to thank for that: Ros, and the hours and hours she’d talked to him, held him, stroked him as he confessed everything, milked his seed from him muttering the things she knew he wanted to hear. _”We love you, Theon Greyjoy, Jon and me. We love you, Robb and me.”_

_No – no, Ros did not do those things. Ros opened her cunt for him like the whore that she was, took his silver, and let him fuck her wherever he pleased. Yes. Yes, that was it._

“Look at you, Prince Theon. Keening like a green boy,” Jon whispered. 

Theon moaned. “I don’t think I can wait for Robb. In fact, I know I can’t. Not if you keep doing that.” He took a mouthful of wine. “Come on, Snow. He won’t mind. Are you naked under those furs? If you’re not, you should be. Hold steady – let me get these breeches off—”

“Hold _steady?_ ” said Jon, raising an eyebrow. Theon was well aware how closely he must resemble a hooked fish, flapping about on land. But he needed the breeches _gone_ and his cock _free_ and this was a difficult task to accomplish whilst holding a wineskin in one hand and fumbling a laced knot with the other, when both occupied hands were rendered by the wine about as useful as if they were wheels of cheese on the end of his arms.

“What you doing with that?” cried Theon indignantly as Jon took a firm hold of the wineskin.

“As your cupbearer, my lord, it is my duty to protect against all spills.” Jon swallowed a gulp of wine, followed by another. “There now. If there’s none left, it won’t spill.”

Theon twisted around in Jon’s lap and got unsteadily to his feet. He towered over Jon on the bed, a smirk on his face. “Will my cupbearer suck his Lord’s cock as well?”

Jon tipped the wineskin up at full tilt, finishing off the last drops. “Provided my Lord has sense enough to unlace his breeches.”

“My lord has plenty sense,” murmured Theon fairly nonsensically, in what he had hoped would come out of his mouth a seductive and alluring tone. Unfortunately, if he had even remotely managed it, the mood came to an abrupt end with a hissed, “ _Shit_. I cannot untie this for all the fucking gold up Tywin Lannister’s arse. Don’t laugh, Jon! Gods, my fucking head is spinning. Help me, would you? Good little lord, there there. Your Prince’s cock needs the cold winter’s kiss of snow…”

“Seven hells, Theon!” laughed Jon, shaking his head. “Come here with those laces, _my Prince._ ”

“Where’s Robb? Where is Lord Stark? I hear he’s got a lovely round arse just begging to be fucked.”

“Theon, _keep still._ Every time you stagger about it pulls the bloody knot tighter. And shut up; half of Winterfell can probably hear you.”

Theon could feel his voice rising louder and louder, though he couldn’t seem to help it, and nor did he want to. He was suddenly full of fire, as though he may explode with the force of it, and so fiercely happy that he wished all the castle to know. And they _would know,_ by all the Iron Islands and every Ironborn alive, they’d know. Because _happy_ , he’d learned, was more than that fucking shit-eating grin he plastered on his face wherever he went, and _happy_ , such a small and simple word, was worth a thousand simpering kitchen girls’ cunts. 

He knew he shouldn’t be happy. He was a hostage. If his father knew he was happy, he’d probably disown him. 

Theon giggled. _Fuck him,_ he thought. _And fuck anybody else who wanted to take a shit on his happiness._

“Then let the whole castle hear!” he cried. “And what of it? Ned Stark’s hostage boy is fucking his sons, and they love every minute of it. Like to see them try to stop me. I’m the fucking kraken! I’m the Drowned fucking God! _Ouch,_ Snow. Don’t pinch me, you bitch!”

“Then sit back down, idiot. You don’t have to prove anything. You never did, Theon.”

Theon did not want to talk about serious issues in that moment, because he was drunk and as such was not in control of things his mouth may decide to say such as _I know I don’t need to pretend with you_ or _thank fuck we discovered each other_ and _please can you and Robb promise never to leave me because I don’t really belong anywhere else and I’m frightened_ , or even _I love you, Jon – I love you both_. 

So instead Theon focused on Jon’s mouth and said, “You look very pretty when you sigh at me, Jon Snow.” Jon had the most deliciously pink lips, redder still from the wine that lingered there, and when they were parted like that, it was difficult for Theon to control himself. In fact, he couldn’t work out what he wanted more: to kiss the lips, to bite them clean off…to shove his cock between them and watch them wrap around his length in a perfect, pink O….

“Theon, don’t look at me like that. You know what it does to me. And you know we have to wait for Robb.”

“Get my fucking breeches off. Now, Jon.” 

“But, Robb—”

“I didn’t say we weren’t going to wait for him, did I? We’ll just get ourselves ready, is all. Gods, I need these breeches off. I need my cock inside you, Jon – inside Robb, inside you both – please.”

“Greyjoys…always greedy, always wanting what they can’t have.” Jon’s fingers undid Theon’s lacings, his hands sliding within to cup the curve of Theon’s arse. He slid the breeches down Theon’s thighs and Theon thought for a moment that he may well spend right then in Jon’s lap, but then he took some deep breaths and composed himself once more.

Slowly and carefully, Theon pulled back the furs at Jon’s waist. As they grazed his erect cock, Jon drew a sharp, involuntary breath. Theon grinned. “No. _Always taking what is theirs_.”

“I’m yours now, am I?” laughed Jon breathily.

“You and Robb both,” replied Theon. “Nobody else’s. Not even each other’s. _Mine._ ” Theon licked his lips. “Spread your legs.”

“Not without R—”

“I swear if you say that one more time I shall slap your cock off. I’m just getting you ready. Spread. Your. Legs.” 

_“And who gave you two permission to start without me?”_

Both Theon and Jon’s faces snapped up to the door, which Theon realised with a strange detachment he had left open.

“Greyjoy, you left the fucking door open!” said Jon.

Robb stood there in the doorway, all broad shouldered and grave-looking, with that _hair_ and those _blue eyes_ and even though Theon knew he was in trouble, he couldn’t help but think how much he wanted to take down his breeches and suck his Lord’s cock. 

“You two should be glad it was only me, and not my father,” said Robb in his Lord’s voice.

“You _two_?” said Jon. “ _I_ didn’t leave the door open!”

Robb stepped into the room, Theon watching him closely. Every step he took was meticulously precise; considered and careful. Robb could always hold his drink better than Theon could; Theon knew it, and it irritated him. Nevertheless, a grin spread across Theon’s face as he realised it was obvious that Robb was thoroughly fucked. His stern expression was just a little too deliberate to be natural, and his eyes just a little too glazed to be sober.

“Snow,” said Theon wickedly, “Our Lord is drunk.”

“Your Lord is not,” said Robb.

Jon smiled at the floor. “You are, Robb.”

“And what if I am? Is it not a Lord’s privilege?”

“Lords have many privileges,” said Theon. “How about you come over here and claim them? _My lord?_ ”

Robb’s sombre expression spread into a grin as he advanced towards the bed. “Give it a rest with the Lord nonsense, Theon. I’ve had it all night. You know how I want it. Make me forget.”

Theon glanced from Robb to Jon, whose grey eyes had darkened so much they seemed almost black. _Gods,_ how that made Theon’s cock ache. Theon watched Jon’s gaze fall on Robb’s groin, where his quick fingers unlaced Robb’s breeches in moments.

“I want to fuck him,” Theon murmured. “You can have his mouth, Snow. I want his arse.”

“You always want his arse,” replied Jon. 

“Not always. Sometimes, I want _your_ arse.” 

“Greedy Greyjoy.” 

Robb sucked in a sharp intake of breath. “Enough,” he muttered.

“Oh no, little Lord Stark,” said Theon. “You can’t have it both ways. No ordering us about tonight. You want to forget? We’ll make you forget, you little whore. I’m going to fuck your arse so hard you won’t be able to sit down tomorrow. Not just with my cock, either. All my fingers are going in too, just how you like it. But only if you beg me. Only if you say, ‘Prince Theon, I need you to fucking _split me open_ ’….”

Robb groaned, throaty and loud, as Jon swallowed his cock to the back of his throat in a single movement. How grateful Theon was to Jon in that moment. The two of them had spent so many of their formative years fighting each other that actually they came to know each other’s strengths equally as well as their weaknesses. Theon’s strength was his words, whereas Jon’s was his silence, his actions. Jon could never say the things to Robb that Theon could, so he played to his strengths. And what a strength it was.

“What would your lord Father say?” whispered Theon. He stood, wobbled only slightly, and slid behind Robb so that he could wrap his arms around Robb’s waist, tangle his fingers in Jon’s hair as he sucked. “What would _anybody_ in Winterfell say, if they could see you now, you desperate slut? You’re not a lord at all.”

“I’m not a lord at all,” echoed Robb in a gasp, bucking forward into Jon’s mouth. Jon gagged a little, which was completely unlike him and the sound drove Theon’s cock mad. 

“Sorry,” gurgled Jon, releasing Robb for a moment. “You took me by surprise, is all.”

“Did I tell you to stop, Snow?” said Theon. He ran a finger down Jon’s cheek, tilted his chin up to meet his eyes. “You’re doing so well, Jon. So well. Let’s make our Lord Stark forget his own fucking name.”

Afterwards, as the three of them lay tangled in such a sweaty mess that it would have been difficult for an observer to discern whose limb belonged to whom, Theon congratulated himself on a performance that, given the fact he had been significantly inebriated, was at least slightly above par. His hand had fallen to rest on Robb’s lovely round arse, still hot and red from Jon’s slaps. He gave it a small squeeze and Robb murmured in his sleep. Robb’s arse was truly a thing of wonder. It was so perfectly small and ripe, like a succulent plum, yet it could fit _four_ of Theon’s fingers as well as his cock, and his cock wasn’t small. Robb was a talented man.

“Come here,” whispered Jon’s voice in Theon’s ear. He hadn’t even realised Snow was still awake. Usually he was the first to snore.

“I am here,” mumbled Theon contentedly.

“No, _here_.” 

“Demanding bastard,” said Theon, though there was nothing about his tone that was unkind. Theon turned his head and found it immediately buried in Jon’s neck, resting on his collarbone.

“Better,” said Jon.

They lay in the quiet for a long while, Theon listening to Robb’s steady, soft snores, studying his ribcage as it lifted and fell, taking in every inch of his frame. Robb had a tiny birthmark just above his hip bone. Theon felt a sudden swell of affection towards that birthmark, infinitesimal on Robb’s body, but _so significant._ Through the window space, Theon watched the black night sky spread into blue. “I could stay in this room forever,” he murmured. “I know it’s stupid, but tell me we can stay here. Tell me this is home. I never want to go back to Pyke, Jon. Not now that we have this. Don’t let Lord Eddard send me back. Tell me—”

Jon snored gently, and Theon smiled. Probably a good thing, really. He couldn’t have Snow thinking he’d gone soft, lost his wits. Because he most certainly had not. He was Ironborn, after all. 

Theon closed his eyes, and slept.


	3. The King in the North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s me.” Theon poked his head inside. Robb lay in his bed, surrounded by candlelight. “Are you sleeping, Robb?”_
> 
> _“Barely.”_
> 
> _Theon hesitated in the doorway of the tent. “May I come in, your Grace?”_
> 
> _“You don’t need to call me ‘Your Grace’ when we’re alone, Theon. And yes, you can come in.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And down we go.

It took Theon a long while to even knock the door.

The fact it was a tent didn’t help. 

He rustled the flaps a little, coughed a bit outside. Someone from a few tents over called, “shut up, will you? How are we meant to take the heads off Lannister soldiers tomorrow on two hours’ sleep?”

“All right, all right,” muttered Theon. A little malevolent part of himself thought that if he had to stand guard outside Robb’s tent all fucking night then nobody else deserved to get any sleep either, but he knew it was wrong to think that as he’d volunteered. Well, _volunteered_ was a loose word for it, as Theon point blank refused to allow any of the other men the job. 

_”He’s my brother, in all but blood,”_ Theon had said resolutely, by way of explanation. He supposed that brothers didn’t usually do the things that he and Robb did to each other back in Winterfell – well, perhaps they did, because Robb and Jon did those things too, and they were wonderful – but at least it had proved a valid excuse – sorry, valid _reason_ \-- to stay so close to Robb at all times.

“That you, Theon?” said Robb’s voice from within the tent. He sounded heavy with the fog of sleep – or lack thereof.

“It’s me.” Theon poked his head inside. Robb lay in his bed, surrounded by candlelight. “Are you sleeping, Robb?”

“Barely.”

Theon hesitated in the doorway of the tent. “May I come in, your Grace?”

“You don’t need to call me ‘Your Grace’ when we’re alone, Theon. And yes, you can come in.”

The tent was illuminated by a soft glow from scattered candles, mostly arranged around a large map spread across a table. As he walked past, Theon ran his fingertips along the parchment, tracing a line towards Winterfell. He lingered there for a moment, staring at the tiny etching of such an important place. Then his eyes met Robb’s, who was lying on his side in his bed, furs pulled up to his stubbled chin. “You naked under those furs, Lord Stark?” whispered Theon with a smirk, as though they were back home and not hundreds of miles away.

Robb smiled wearily, sitting up. “Very funny, Greyjoy.”

“You look like you’ve not slept for days,” said Theon, sitting on the end of Robb’s bed. “No offence.”

“I feel like it,” replied Robb. He frowned. “When we left Winterfell, I never knew, Theon. I never knew it would be this hard.”

“What is it troubling you?”

Robb paused. “In honesty? All of it. Those men out there are dying for me, for what I believe in and the cause I fight. I don’t know their names, and half of them I can’t discern one house from another, and which bannerman belongs to whom. Every decision I make I’ve got Karstark in my ear—”

“Fuck him,” said Theon brashly. “The old man doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.”

“But I _can’t_ , that’s the thing. I have to keep the men happy.”

“You’ve always been good at that, little Lordling. I should know.”

Robb laughed. “So you’re suggesting I pleasure the banners, is that right? Suck their cocks and offer them my arse to fuck? I seem to remember you as the jealous type, Lord Greyjoy. You never liked to share.”

“I shared myself. With you, and Jon,” said Theon simply. Then he said, “It’s good to see you smile, Robb. It’s been too long. Since Winterfell. Since—” 

And then Theon couldn’t say any more, and he didn’t know why. There were words in his head, like _Jon_ and _Wall_ and _promise_ and _left us_ but he was unable to speak any aloud, as though if they left his mouth, they would become real in the world. Instead he stared at Robb’s eyes – Robb’s clear, sad, blue eyes – and wanted nothing more to be miles away from that fucking field and that horrible war, back in Winterfell, in Jon’s bed like the three of them used to do most nights, back _home._

“Don’t look at me like that, Theon – please—” 

“What if I slept here tonight? Just once. We could pretend we’re in Winterfell. I’d sleep better if I were with you; you’d sleep with me here, too. Don’t make me beg, Stark: you know that isn’t my style.”

“Theon, stop—”

Theon’s thin hands clasped the furs at Robb’s waist. “We wouldn’t have to do anything. Just sleep. Fuck, Robb – I’ve missed you so much. _So much._ I lie in just the next tent and I feel further from you than I ever have, even when we were boys.”

“Theon, don’t do this—”

Theon could feel hot tears prickling at his eyes, which he sniffed away with a cough and a wipe of his sleeve across his face. He would not lose himself now. _He would not._ “And Jon – don’t you miss him? He should be here, fighting with us. Lying with us.” He fisted his hand in Robb’s curls. “Look at me, Robb! It doesn’t have to be like this. Nobody has to know. We can go back to how we were. I can’t _fucking_ sleep. Why do you think I’d rather stand guard outside all the fucking night? You, Jon, this war – everything is churning in my mind like mud on the battlefield. _We need us._ ”

“Don’t you realise I think about it all the time?” Robb cried. “Do you not know how stressful this is for me? I’ve lost Jon and I’ve lost you, and I have twenty thousand men at my command. Each fucking bannerman has one eye on whatever suits his house best and don’t forget their flags are here on my father’s name, not mine. And my father is dead. My sisters are prisoners of the Lannisters and my brothers are on their own in Winterfell. Bran is nine years old, Theon! Heavens know what is becoming of my father’s halls. Meanwhile, I’ve not proved myself a soldier yet, let alone a commander, and these men follow me and look to me for my war counsel, which I duly give as though I know strategy as well as I know stick-games in Winterfell’s courtyard.”

“Then may the Gods help us,” said Theon, “for you were truly awful at stick-games. Snow always bested you.” 

Despite his despair, Robb laughed. 

“See. Having me around is good for your Grace’s health,” grinned Theon. “Mayhaps your Grace would permit his Lord Greyjoy to explore other means of stress relief?”

Robb grasped Theon’s hand as it edged closer to his lap. “Theon. You know we can’t.”

“Yes, but doesn’t that entice you more? It entices me.”

“Some of us have sworn responsibilities,” sighed Robb. “I need to lead this army to King’s Landing, avenge my father, and return victorious to the North. I can’t afford distractions, as enticing as they may be. I’m not a child of Winterfell any more, Theon, and neither are you. What we _want_ is no longer something that can matter.”

“But say we do it all. Say we smash King’s Landing to pieces. Say we put that cunt Joffrey’s head on a spike, and all those fucking Goldcloaks too. Say we restore Ned Stark’s honour and bring him home to Winterfell for a proper Stark burial.”

Robb smiled softly. “Sometimes I dream of it. I tell myself not to think but I cannot stop.”

“We will do it, Robb. I swear it, we will—”

“But I don’t see _how._ King’s Landing will just put itself to siege. We haven’t got the men nor the supplies to wait out that long. Over land they will see us coming for miles. I have this army flying my family’s banners, and no idea what to do with it.”

Theon stared hard at Robb. “My father has ships—”

“No, Theon.”

“Listen – just, hear this, please, Robb. My father has ships – good ships, and good men who can handle them. We could take King’s Landing from the sea, if only my father would pledge his honour to your cause.”

“Your father fought my father, and lost,” said Robb. “I don’t like to remind you of the circumstances that brought us together, Theon.”

“And nor do I enjoy being reminded, yet here we are.”

“For Balon Greyjoy to bend the knee to any Stark, let alone some whelp like me, he’d have to have lost his wits.”

Theon grasped Robb’s shoulders. “Send me to Pyke. Send me to negotiate with my father. He’ll listen to me, I know it. I’m his only son – his last son. His _blood._ Send me to Pyke, and I shall get the ships you need to take King’s Landing.”

“And talking of wits, you’ve definitely lost yours. I thought you said you never wanted to go back to Pyke.”

A memory flashed into Theon’s mind as vivid as if it were unfolding in front of him. _”I know it’s stupid, but tell me we can stay here. Tell me this is home. I never want to go back to Pyke, Jon. Not now that we have this. Don’t let Lord Eddard send me back. Tell me—”_

Theon flushed. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was. Jon was not.”

“You talked?”

“We talked.” 

“Well. I had no idea either of you knew about that. Doesn’t that make me quite the outsider.”

Robb grasped Theon’s hand tightly. “No. It does not.”

It was unfair of Robb, Theon thought, to know him so absolutely – to take his hand, and to speak to him with his eyes in that way he does (Jon loved that too) – yet to keep him so fucking far away. How was it even possible to take somebody’s hand when such a gulf stretched between them?

“Me going to Pyke,” began Theon, though he struggled with the words. “Me going to Pyke – I’m doing it so that you have what you need to take King’s Landing. I know I can be a selfish arse, Robb, but for once I want to do something right. Something good, which doesn’t benefit me at the end of it all.”

Robb paused. “And say you get your father’s ships. What after?”

“If the war is won, will you have achieved what you set out to do?” asked Theon.

Robb nodded.

Theon leaned forward, taking Robb’s stubbled face in his hands. “Then, we go home.” 

_Gods,_ how Theon loved Robb’s face when it looked so desperate, so pained. He knew he shouldn’t; he knew it was strange. But he also knew why he loved it so much. It was like seeing through the Lord’s mask to somewhere only Theon was permitted to go. He ached to be the one whose touch dissolved the pain from Robb’s blue eyes. It was the same ache that had plagued Theon from his boyhood days, the ache that had never left him, even when he and Jon had together made Robb feel so good that he’d forget his own name was _Stark_ , forget all the weight that name carried, and all the misery with it. 

“Say we do it,” whispered Robb. His eyes seemed sadder than ever. Theon leaned closer as Robb spoke, his gaze falling to Robb’s lips. They were so close that Theon could feel Robb’s breath. So close that Theon would simply have to lick his own lips to touch Robb’s. “Say we take Balon Greyjoy’s fleet and smash the Lannisters into splinters on the Blackwater. Say we come home to Winterfell, and say that the Iron Islands don’t care a jot that their men, their ships, their Prince Theon never return to Pyke. Say I take up my place as head of my father’s table, my seat as Lord of Winterfell.”

“Gods, _yes_ \--”

“Say I have to marry. Say I sire sons, live out my days in the North, growing old as those around me grow old alongside. Say I watch those I love live and die, as the long winter comes.”

“Through all of it I will not leave your side, Robb. I swear it.”

“Even as I lie upon my marital bed? You’d stand by, silent, watching me make love to my wife?”

“You must do your duty, I understand.” Theon whispered. His lips were so close now. _So close._ “Though I would burn with jealousy of her. But it doesn’t change anything. I would die for you. You know I would.”

“I know it,” murmured Robb against Theon’s lips. So Theon kissed him then, slowly and delicately, as though their world was dying and this was life’s final, beautiful act. Robb’s sharp intake of breath sounded like a choked sob. 

“Don’t fear, my Lord,” whispered Theon into Robb’s mouth. “Everything is well, now. The war is far away. For this night, and all the nights to come, if we have each other.”

Robb stiffened in Theon’s arms. Something churned deep in Theon’s stomach: a worry, an anxiousness that he couldn’t quite place, but that had lurked there since he had stepped into Robb’s tent but an hour before. He pressed his lips more urgently on Robb’s, as though it would prevent him from breaking their embrace. 

But Theon knew Robb had already broken it, in his mind.

“ _Theon. We cannot do this._ ”

“Robb – please. I beg you, please. Don’t—”

“We made a promise—”

“Don’t say it!” Theon’s voice did not sound like his own. “I didn’t know what I was promising back then! I didn’t know how it would be!” 

Robb’s eyes were pleading, desperate. “Theon, we promised that we’d never -- _not without Jon._ ”

 _But I can’t live without Jon_ , screamed Theon in his mind. I can’t live without Jon, and I can’t live without you. I am existing. I am not living. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat…I lie in the dark and pull at my cock like a green boy, keening for a touch that never comes, desperate for the warmth of the only two people who ever loved me: the lord’s face with the lord’s voice who protected me, and who falls to pieces for me to protect him in return; the bastard boy, my outsider equal who found me the place I fit best, and whose love burned hotter than his hatred ever had.

Instead, because all these things were too difficult to say, even to the very person to whom he wanted to say them, Theon pleaded quietly, “ _but Jon wouldn’t know_.”

Robb’s face hardened in an instant. It felt like a dagger stabbed into Theon’s gut. “Really, Greyjoy? That’s how much you want a quick fuck?”

_Robb, no – I miss him so much it hurts – I miss the three of us. I’m worthless without you – without both of you. I don’t belong. I have no place._

“That’s not what I meant,” Theon stuttered.

“ _Jon wouldn’t know,_ that’s what you said,” replied Robb coldly. “You made a _promise,_ as did I. Does honour mean nothing to you?”

 _I should weep,_ thought Theon, _for this is what you truly think of me._

“Honour means everything to me, your Grace,” Theon replied stiffly. He rose from Robb’s bed and walked to the map. The candles there had melted to tiny stumps, and some had expired entirely. Little mountains of wax littered the edges of the parchment. Theon picked at one and it fell apart in his fingers. 

Robb ran his hands through his hair. He sighed, long and weary. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe you should go to Pyke. Perhaps it is best for both of us.”

Theon’s jaw clenched. He pulled at another candle mountain, though this one was fresh and the soft wax seared his fingertips, a burning pain. “You’re sending me away.”

“You offered to go.”

“I offered to go so that it would help end this war. So that we could – so that we could _be_. Not so I could be shipped off like a naughty little boy!”

“The three of us will do better on our own. Jon is on his own. We’ll be able to honour our promise without temptation if I’m at war and you’re back home with your father—”

“ _Back home_?” Theon whirled around to face Robb, and for the first time, his pleading and sad eyes didn’t make Theon want to save him, to take his pain away. It made Theon want to hit him. Again, and again, until he didn’t have to see those fucking eyes any more. Eyes like a kicked dog. “My father sent me away, like you’re sending me away! Do you suppose he cares about what has happened to me since? I’m a Greyjoy in nothing but name; do you think I even _have_ a home? I thought I did – but it seems that I was wrong.”

“Theon—”

“No! I understand perfectly, _your Grace._ I’m better off on Pyke so that you don’t have to think about me any more – me, us, or the sordid things we did in Jon’s bastard bed, or in the crypts under the gaze of your lady mother’s precious Gods, or any of the other times you begged and pleaded for Snow and me to make a fucking whore of you so that you didn’t have to face what a hypocrite and a craven you truly are.”

“ _Theon_ \--” Robb’s voice was a sob.

_I’m sorry, Robb, I’m so sorry – I’m sorry for it all…I can’t help it, I don’t mean it, I am just so angry – please, make everything all right. Like you always do. Tell me I don’t need to go to Pyke. Tell me my home is with you. Get Jon back – bring him back to us. Make this stop. Just speak, Robb, please – make it stop – just say something, for fuck’s sake – just say fucking something –_

Theon smashed an arm through the remaining candles by the map, plunging the tent into near darkness save the few dying flames around Robb’s bed. His face, framed in the shadows, seemed to have lost the lord’s edge he had sculpted so carefully of late. In the low light, he reminded Theon of Robb from summers long past, when they were boys playing at being men in the Godswood with Jon, entangled in each other so wholly, as though nothing else existed nor needed to exist. 

_”Are you our brother, Theon?”_ Robb used to say. 

_”In all but blood,”_ Theon would reply. 

_”I thought you were Father’s ward.”_ Jon. He was always working with his hands, carving stones or shaping sticks into a sharp point, observing everything in his pensive silence.

Theon would smirk, _”Do bastards call their fathers that, or should they say, ‘Lord Stark’?_ ” and then Robb would interject, “ _Enough,_ ” and that would be all that was needed. One day, _”enough”_ triggered something in Theon that he saw mirrored in Jon, and although they had only been boys then, it had marked the start of how they recognised their hate was not hate at all, but something else, and that at the heart of it – like a prize to be won but shared, enjoyed, savoured – was Robb. 

“Theon – we promised him – and I don’t trust myself—” Robb held his head in his hands. “I miss him as much as you do. I need it as much as you do. And the stress of commanding this war—”

Something hardened in Theon then. He straightened his gait, threw his shoulders back. He would not go from this tent a snivelling mess. Not now that he knew the truth, knew that whatever they had shared together had turned to dust. He was never a Stark. He had never belonged. Not really. He had been a distraction for Robb and Jon alike: from Robb’s lordly worries; from Jon’s bitter resentments. _Love?_ There was no such thing. Just whores and bastards and lords alike, fucking just to feel something greater than the life’s lot they didn’t want.

“Am I meant to be flattered that you fear you cannot contain your cock in your breeches around me?” spat Theon. “The foreign hostage without honour? So much so that you’d rather send me away than look at my face? Forgive me if I offend your Grace, but you cannot miss him like I do.” 

_Don’t say it, Theon. Don’t say it, you spineless, weak, sick fucking craven. You can never take it back. Never. Don’t say it. It isn’t true._

“For -- for I never loved you, you privileged and painted little Lordling of Winterfell, with your inherited name and castle and bannermen and precious family. I _used_ you to lie with Jon. Jon and I are the _same_. We are forever _not Starks_. We made a whore of you for nought but sport, and so we could lie together under your protection.”

“Theon, _don’t_ \--”

“If it please your Grace, I shall leave for Pyke at first light. I shall bring you your ships. You shall have your war, and you will be the Lord and saviour of the fucking world that you deem to be more important than – than—”

Of course, Theon couldn’t say it -- _than us._ Instead he left the tent, and left behind in it each version of Robb that he had ever known: the boy, the little Lord, the stripped and begging whore, the commander, the broken King. 

And, although he did not know it at the time, with Robb he left the parts of Theon Greyjoy that marked him a Stark. 

Though he would eventually recover some, those parts would be lost for a long while: scattered like bloodied ash over Robb’s decimated camp at the Twins; floating North on the wind to Deepwood Motte and the Dreadfort.

And to Winterfell.


	4. Greyjoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 4: Greyjoy**
> 
> _He shouldn’t have to knock any door. Doors should be flung open for him. It makes him simmer with fury that they are not, and that he is treated like a strange intruder in the one place that should welcome him home. He sees it in the eyes of every guard, every solider, even every fucking scullery maid or kitchen boy. He sees disdain._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Theon. You absolute disaster.

It takes Theon a long while to even knock the door. 

He shouldn’t have to knock any door. Doors should be flung open for him. It makes him simmer with fury that they are not, and that he is treated like a strange intruder in the one place that should welcome him home. He sees it in the eyes of every guard, every solider, even every fucking scullery maid or kitchen boy. He sees disdain. 

His sister is to blame. Everybody will know what she did, Theon is sure of it. How she tricked him, made him look like a fucking thick-as-shit green boy. Theon didn’t even know why he had wanted to touch her; she looks like a boy, for fuck’s sake. _Perhaps that’s why,_ he thinks, and drives his fingernails into his palms so hard that he knows he’ll draw blood. Perhaps it’s because when he feels at his most vulnerable, he needs validation. He needs to know he is of worth. He can fuck his way to worth. He knows that. It has been the solution to every single problem. _And it has been the cause of every single problem,_ Theon thinks.

“Is somebody going to open this fucking door?” says Theon loudly, and impatiently. “My father has instructed me to take a room so that I can r—”

The door opens. “Just readying your quarters, Lord Greyjoy,” says a voice from inside. A maid – though not one that Theon would fuck out of choice, but may do so out of necessity – smooths down a plain spread across a thin, hard-looking bed. 

“You should call me Prince Theon.”

The maid looks him up and down. “Prince Theon,” she concedes, though her tone is bored.

“Leave me,” Theon says. He flicks her a copper piece. “For your trouble.”

She considers it with disinterest, which makes Theon’s skin prickle. “With thanks, my Lord,” she says because she has to.

As the door closes behind her, Theon surveys his room. A bed, a table, a dirty hearth. No window. He can’t even hear the sea. That’s what he’s meant to want, isn’t it? To hear the sea? The room is so fucking _silent_ that it feels deafening. There had always been noise at Winterfell. Bran, Rickon and Arya had seen to that. And in the tents, when he and R—

He’s on Pyke now. Whatever has gone before has gone. Comfort is not needed. It doesn’t matter that Balon Greyjoy has put his only son – his blood and heir – in some god-awful guest chamber, hidden away from the rest of the castle like a dirty, shameful little secret. _No,_ thinks Theon, _this is a test. This is character building._ This is where true men are _born_ men. Theon’s _glad_ there aren’t any soft furs or heavy drapes, or warm fires, for then it would feel too much like Winterfell. Pyke is not Winterfell, and therefore it doesn’t matter that _they_ aren’t here. They haven’t climbed the cliff for themselves, nor feasted in Balon Greyjoy’s great hall. (Neither has Theon.) They’ve not paid the iron price _even once_ in their privileged lives. (Neither has Theon.) They haven’t even seen Theon’s chamber – his _own_ chamber. They haven’t touched the door handle nor walked the stone floor. 

They’ve not lain together in the bed. 

They are so wholly absent, so singularly apart from a place as can be possible. And so Theon is grateful for the barren room, this strange, cold room, for it is as hard as his heart. He has the Iron Islands in his blood. He does, he does, _he does_ …

“ _Brother._ ” Asha’s voice, outside the door.

“Go away. I’m busy.” 

He can almost hear her smirk. “Busy doing what? Planning your great strategy of war with all your loyal men?” A snort of derision. “Mayhaps, if that’s what they call pulling oneself off, up in Stark country.” 

Theon’s face burns with fury and shame. “Are you deaf, you dumb bitch? I said, go away.”

Asha pauses. “Whilst nothing would give me greater pleasure, my father has tasked me to speak with you. So either you put your little cock away and let me in, or I come in anyway.” 

Theon opens the door and he doesn’t know why he says it, because he has nothing to prove, _especially_ not to _her_ , but he says it all the same. “It’s not little, thank you.”

Asha’s leaning on the door frame, a smirk on her face. Seven _hells_ \- fuck, Theon means _Drowned God_ \- how he wants to punch it off her. Can you punch a woman? Theon reasons, _you can, the question is whether you should._ And Theon quickly comes to think that you should, if one is Ironborn and one can do as one pleases, and if the woman in question is no fucking woman.

“Those who shout the loudest about their gigantic cocks usually prove to be the bitterest disappointments,” says Asha, entering the room as though it is hers to enter. “Give me a pretty, understated little cunt any day.” 

“I didn’t say you could come in.”

“I don’t need your permission.” 

Theon draws himself up to his full height. “This is my chamber. You do need my permission.”

“This is my castle, little brother.”

“It is our _father’s_ castle—”

“Therefore it is not _your_ room.” Asha trails a finger across the top of the dusty mantelpiece. “Barely enough room to fuck in here.”

“Did you want something in particular?” Theon does his best to keep the irritation from his voice, but fails – he just wants to be left alone, to think (of Robb and Jon - _no, no_ ) and, gods willing, fucking sleep for once. It feels as though he hasn’t slept for a lifetime. He is too cold to sleep. 

Asha looks at him, hard. “Why have you come back here, little brother?”

“That is for me to discuss with father—”

“Trust me, Theon, he shan’t give you the time of day unless I counsel him to do so. I’m here to determine your purpose, and to judge it worthy.” She casts a throwaway glance up and down Theon’s body. “Or otherwise.”

“I don’t discuss matters of war with women.”

Asha barks out a laugh. “Won’t discuss matters of war with a woman, but will dress up in pretty golden finery like he’s one himself? Tell me, Theon: did a Stark smith hammer that kraken onto your chest? Did he call you ‘Lord’ as he did it? You are a ‘Greyjoy’ by birthright alone, Theon, and that is how you will remain unless you start proving yourself.”

Theon wants to tear the stupid fucking breastplate from his torso. “And how am I meant to prove myself if my father sends – sends _you_ to hear my cause? He sent _me_ away; I didn’t _choose_ to go!”

“Then come back with some humility!” Asha’s eyes are fire, and Theon is burning. “The Iron Islands owe you nothing. The Greyjoy name owes you nothing. My father owes you nothing. We pay the iron price.”

Theon yearns to seize his sister by the throat, fling her against the wall, choke the life out of her. What does she know about what Theon is or isn’t owed? She hadn’t been _given away_ , not like he had. “You don’t know anything about me, you cunt,” snarls Theon. “You may dress and act like a fucking martyr but you’ve had everything you wanted here, given to you, just like Robb Stark.” 

Asha raises an eyebrow. “Are you…. _jealous_ …of your precious Lord Stark, little boy?”

How Theon wishes he could capture that fucking name and ram it back in his mouth. He doesn’t even know where it came from. He hadn’t even felt it on his tongue. It stings, like salt in a wound. “ _No._ ”

“I’m starting to understand now,” Asha is saying, tapping her chin. Theon wants to snap her finger off. “Little Lordling Stark sends his most loyal bitch off on an errand, and Master Greyjoy is only too happy to please.”

“I said no—”

Asha snorts. “I can read you like the tide, little brother. Let me guess: _Robb Stark is different_ , is that it? _Robb Stark is a true leader, a man worth fighting for._ If that is true, Theon, why are you jealous of him?”

“I’m not—” 

“I’ll tell you why. When he’s let off the leash, our little captive begins to realise that his beloved Robb isn’t all that different to the rest of them – those privileged, painted Southern lords who can buy anything they want…lands, armies, whores, lovers…and our Master Greyjoy is _disappointed_ ….”

Theon can see it as clearly as though it were happening in front of him: he is pinning Asha to the floor, smothering her mouth with his hand, driving his nails into her throat, pressing his knee into her sternum. He can hear her wheezing for breath. He can hear her begging for mercy. _I yield, Prince Theon. I yield, I yield_ \---

“I am here because Robb Stark needs us,” says Theon, with great effort. “Not because we need him.”

“And you propose we bend the knee, send Ironborn men to lose their lives all to help some other house gain glory?” Asha spits on the stone floor. “ _We do not sow._ In case your little holiday in the North has made you forget, _greenlander_.”

And then Theon is pinning Asha to the wall, his fist balled at her shoulder, his mouth so close to hers that tiny sprays of saliva land on her lips. And suddenly he thinks of Jon and _Say that word again and I’ll knock the teeth from your head_ and how angrily he would pin Theon to the wall in the armoury and what he did there and –

“Unhand me, little brother, else your chance of siring any saltwife’s whorish bastards will very rapidly decrease.”

Theon blinks, remembers where he is, and releases his sister. His expensive doublet is choking him. He needs clear air. It is too thick with salt here. He needs trees. There are no trees on Pyke. 

“Some fire in you at last,” says Asha, smoothing her collar. “Though, you do still whinge like a bitch. Is that what you do with your mouth wrapped around Robb Stark’s cock?”

“I swear it, by the Drowned God, I don’t care that you’re a woman, I will – I will—”

“You’ll what? Since you arrived you’ve not stopped mewling about Robb Stark. Tell me, along with being _such_ a fine lord, is fucking you up the arse one of the things he’s so good at?”

It _hurts._ It hurts to think of it. And what can Theon possibly say? No matter how many times he’d fucked, how many times he’d brought Jon and Robb to pieces on the end of his iron cock, he is still the bitch that his sister describes. He has had Robb’s cock, and Jon’s cock, in his arse and in his throat a thousand times over. He has begged for it on his knees. He has fucking _cried_ with lust as Jon painted his face with bastard seed. He offered up his gaping hole to them like nothing more than a cheap whore in some lousy brothel, pleaded them to fuck him so hard he’d regret running off his mouth, so hard he’d forget every bit of that fucking identity he’d held in such dear import, and he had loved every second of it. 

And when Jon left he’d _cried_ , and nobody knew that, not a soul, not even Robb. He’d sobbed like a lost child into his furs in the darkness at night, Robb a thousand miles away in his chamber, the promise they’d made still on Theon’s lips. Yet when Robb had caved, on the third day Jon had been gone, Theon couldn’t tolerate his tears. The tears made him furious and terrified, scared that they would expose his own misery. _”No more, Stark. You think Jon would want this? He only likes you crying if his dick has caused it.”_ A smirk, a rough hug. Any more contact between them hurt too much. And that was that. 

“I’d fuck you, if I had the cock to do it,” Asha continues. “It might stir a bit of life into you. Is your arse missing a good dicking, Theon? You can have the hilt of my sword if you’re that desperate; it might remind you what being Ironborn means.”

“Shut up!” cries Theon. “Shut up, shut up, you bitch.” 

Asha takes a firm hold of Theon’s groin. “You’re hard.”

_No, please – not now--_

“I’m not hard – it’s just – it’s just generally big, is all—”

“You’re hard, little brother. And you are hardening still.” Asha looks at Theon, a strange expression of wonder on her face. “Is this what you like, little Prince? Something forbidden? Something _wrong_?”

“No—”

“Then is it relinquishing control you crave so badly, Theon? Did your Lord treat you like a bitch in heat, like one of his wolves? Is that what’s making you so hard?”

“ _Fuck you._ ”

Asha smiles slowly. “No. I know what it is, Prince Theon. It’s _touch_ that you crave so much. You don’t care how you get it. You don’t want to take it for yourself – you want it forced from you, so you don’t have to admit how much you need it. So you pretend you don’t want it—”

“Get -- _the fuck_ \-- off me—”

“—yes, good little brother, just like that. Even if you were clever enough to fool me, you’d never fool yourself.”

Theon allows a strangled cry to escape his throat. Asha’s palm is swirling in slow circles over the bulge in his breeches that conceals the head of his cock. Theon hasn’t been touched in weeks. Months. The last person to touch his cock had been Jon. Not even Robb. _Jon._

“Why – why are you doing this? You’re my _sister_ \--”

“Am I, Theon? You’re more Stark than Ironborn.” She squeezes his cock through his breeches and Theon’s breath hitches. _More Stark than Ironborn_. How can a statement make him feel so many different fucking things, all at once? _I am no Stark,_ Theon thinks, gladly. _I am no Stark_ , Theon thinks, bitterly. _I am no Stark,_ thinks Theon, and he wants to cry.

“Stop,” says Theon weakly.

“No,” replies Asha.

Theon closes his eyes then, because his fight has deserted him. And with his eyes shut he is miles away. The air tastes fresh on his lips. He is warm. An arm is around his waist, and a hand is reaching down to his groin. A hardness presses against the curve of his arse. A chuckle tickles his ear. _“You’re a shit shot when you’re so hard, Greyjoy.”_

_”Still a better shot than you, Snow. Archery is in my blood.”_

_”Is it now. Reckon you could pierce our lord Robb Stark over there?”_

_”If his fantastic arse is the target I’d run it right through.”_

_”We both would. Reckon he’d take both our cocks at once?”_

Robb’s across the yard, talking with Lord Eddard, and luckily Theon and Jon are well hidden behind a low wall so that nobody but Robb would ever guess what they were doing. And Robb is clearly struggling to listen to his Lord Father, because his expression darkens with lust. Even though Robb can’t hear them, Theon knows the sight of them would be driving him mad. 

_”Oh, he’d definitely try,”_ says Theon with a smirk. He licks his lips, Robb flushes pink, and has to look away.

“Has it been a long time, Prince Theon?” Asha whispers. “A long time since someone has touched you?”

“Yes.”

“I can tell. I can feel how wet your cock is through your breeches. _Disgusting._ ”

 _Disgusting,_ thinks Theon. That’s what Robb used to want to be called. Theon never understood it, not really. He understands it now.

“Asha – stop—”

“Do you want to fuck me, little brother?”

Theon’s eyes fly open. “Wh—what?”

“You heard. I’ve got a very tight cunt, you know. One advantage to fucking women most of your life. Or you can have my arse. If that’s what you’re used to.”

Theon moans, long and loud, and Asha tightens her grip on his cock. “Why – why are you doing this?” he pleads.

“Because you are so pretty, baby brother,” she coos, and Theon gasps. “Because a Prince like you deserves a proper homecoming. We have missed you, Prince Theon. This is your home now. You are safe, you are loved—”

Theon bucks into Asha’s hand, whimpering in pathetic need, as he’s coming, and coming, wet heat flooding his breeches, flooding him with shame. Asha holds her grip until the last waves have deserted him like the ebbing tide, before releasing him and wiping her hand down Theon’s doublet. She smiles, though it is twisted, like a derisive scowl. 

“ _’You are safe, you are loved_ ’?” she snorts coldly. “You disappoint me, brother. I hoped you were going to make it more difficult for me than that.”

Theon drops his head into his hands. He can’t even look at her.

“I suggest changing before you meet Father,” she says. She looks him up and down. “And I don’t just mean your clothes.”

When she is gone, Theon sits in the darkness and tries to determine who he is, or who he will yet become. And when he has no answers for any of it, because he has never known who _Theon Greyjoy_ was, or is, or will be, he decides that it does not matter what he does anymore. Because if Theon Greyjoy doesn’t exist, he cannot hurt, or be hurt. He can just… _be._

He changes his breeches, he cries, he kicks the shit out of his kraken doublet, he wipes his face, he brushes his hair, and he goes to meet his father.


	5. Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Five: Stark**
> 
> _I’ve done a lot, haven’t I. Things I never imagined myself doing. I fucked a whore so I could say I was no longer a maiden. I fucked my brothers because I loved them more than this earth and it was the only way I could let them know. I fucked my sister’s hand to prove who I am. And then I fucked everything around me – Robb and Bran and Rickon, and Ser Rodrick, and those two farm boys – because that’s what I do: I fuck things. I fuck things before they fuck me. And now I have fucked Winterfell, because if I can’t have it, I’ll fuck it for everybody else, and I cannot go back. I can’t go back to any of it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Theon starts to lose his mind.

It takes Theon a long while to even knock the door. 

But his men are with him and his men are looking to him to take control because he has taken this fucking castle (which is his to take, as the castle took him, so he is taking back the life he is owed, he _is_ ) so he doesn’t knock the door, he throws it open and marches straight in, and Bran is so small in his bed and so confused and so unarmed that it makes Theon _angry._

“Theon?” says Bran, through a fog of sleep.

“Prince Theon now. Get up. You have to get dressed--” His voice is not faltering, it is _not_ , “—I’ve taken Winterfell. I took it. I’m occupying it. I sent men over the walls with grappling claws and ropes—”

“Why?”

“To take the castle.”

“You went with Robb—”

_No, don’t say his name – don’t say his fucking name--_

“And – and he sent me back to Pyke.” _He rejected me. He discarded me. He left me. Just like Jon left me. Not ‘us’, he left ME. Jon left me on my own to cope with Robb, who couldn’t cope without us, and I failed. We all failed._ Theon can’t look at Bran because he resembles Ned, Catelyn and Robb at all once – all their worst parts that Theon cannot bear: honour and goodness and innocence and strength and stubbornness and fortitude and justice. “I’m a Greyjoy,” Theon says, as though giving it voice will make it a truth. “I can’t fight for Robb and my father both. My men are bringing your people together in the courtyard.”

“Why?”

 _Stop asking questions. I don’t want to have to explain. I want you to just know. I don’t want to talk._ “So you and I can go down and tell them how you’ve yielded Winterfell to me.”

“I won’t.”

“ _You will_.”

“I won’t. We’ll fight you and throw you out.”

Bran has grown since Theon saw him last. But not enough so that he looks like a different person. Theon wishes he had. Theon wishes Bran had grown so much and so fast he’d split his skin and died. Because Bran is Lord Stark, and Theon _hates_ Lord Stark. _”Do you like that, Robb? Snow is such a good cocksucker, isn’t he? You’re doing so well, Jon. So well. Let’s make our Lord Stark forget his own fucking name.”_ And Theon hates Bran being a crippled boy-lord. You see, Theon could fight a man. Theon could kill a man. Theon could kill a thousand fucking men if he had to. Why does this – this _child_ make him so angry? Why couldn’t Bran have grown up?

But then, he might look like Robb. And that would be worse. Those cheekbones. Those fucking eyes. Those eyes are Robb’s – Theon knows, because they’re staring at him, judging him. Is it easier to remember Bran as the little boy learning how to shoot arrows? Theon saved him once, from wildlings. Is that easier to remember than this? Why the fuck is everything so _hard?_ Somehow Theon knows that he will remember this moment for the rest of his days. Bran’s face, pale and quiet and questioning. You couldn’t possibly take Winterfell, Theon. You were our brother. You taught me how to shoot arrows. _Shut up, shut up, shut up…_

 _Like teaching him how to shoot arrows._ “Bran. The castle is mine. But the people are still yours. You’ll yield to keep them safe. To keep them alive. That’s what a good lord would do. Think carefully about what you want to say.”

Theon waits. _I yield_ , please. I don’t want to choke you in your bed. I don’t want to. I don’t—

An arrow skims a target. Bran sighs. He could walk, then. 

_”Lift your bow arm up,”_ Theon says. He could smile, then. _”You’ll get it.”_

 _”Are you our brother, Theon?”_ Bran asks.

 _”In all but blood, Bran,”_ Robb replies. Then when Bran’s out of earshot, picking up arrows, Robb grasps Theon’s arm. _“And thank the Gods for that. They’ve damned us already for the blood I share with Snow.”_

_”You’ve shared a lot more than blood with Snow.”_

_”I fancy sharing you with him later tonight.”_ Robb grabs Theon’s arse. _”I’ll have this end._ ”

_”Oh, will you, now?”_

_”Lord’s privilege,”_ says Robb, and Theon wonders what in seven hells has got into him. _”And as your Lord, I expect you to have prepared yourself before Jon and I get there. Oil, of course, and all four fingers.”_

Theon shivers with need. _”And -- and what if I do not?”_

 _”Then it’ll be your fault when we get caught.”_ Robb’s eyes darken. His voice falls to a whisper. Bran is collecting arrows just feet away. _”Because I will impale you the minute I see you, preparation or no, and the whole of Winterfell will hear you scream on the end of my cock.”_

_“Robb, wh—”_

_“Address me correctly, Theon.”_

_”As you wish, Lord Stark.”_

Robb’s face flushes pink because he still wishes he could have the Lord fucked out of him, Theon knows that. That will never change. But _fuck_ , how Theon wants Lord Stark, commanding and strong and imposing, how he wants him _so much_. Robb is Lord Stark when Theon needs him to be. And Theon and Jon make Robb a whore when Robb needs them to. 

_”Are you our brother, Theon?”_

_”In all but blood.”_

Theon can’t look at Bran sitting in his bed, taking in the terms he has been issued. The advice Theon gave. Theon gave good advice. Clever advice. Advice that would mean he wouldn’t need to choke Bran in his bed. _”That’s what a good lord would do.”_ Theon waits for Bran’s reply and stares at a tapestry on a wall. Theon thinks, I will burn that tapestry because it is an ugly thing. I will burn that tapestry because I can. 

“Theon. Did you hate us the whole time?”

_I will burn this whole castle if I have to. I will burn it and everything in it so that I feel nothing. So that the ghosts who condemn me die with it. So that you die with it, Lord Stark._

Theon leaves.

Men leave, too. Winterfell men, and Ironborn men. Even Bran and Rickon leave, in the dead of night, with the halfwit and the wildling slut, and when Asha tells him she isn’t surprised, Theon tells her to fuck off and she leaves as well. _Don’t die so far from the sea,_ she says. Funny, thinks Theon: you didn’t care when I lived so far from it. He doesn’t think about the boys that he murdered. Once he thought about them and he felt he would peel his own flesh from his bones, how mad it drove him, so he doesn’t think about them anymore. _Gods help you, Theon Greyjoy, for now you are truly lost._ There’s a hornblower outside. Luwin says they’re surrounded. “Fuck them,” says Theon. He drains his goblet, throws it aside. “Get more wine. And a girl from downstairs. A pretty one. A blonde one.”

Maester Luwin doesn’t say a word, and then he leaves too. He can’t say anything, for Theon will cut his head off if he does. Theon closes his eyes.

_”Snow,” he says, a million worlds away, “Our Lord Stark is drunk.”_

_“Your Lord is not.”_

_Jon smiles at the floor. “You are, Robb.”_

_“And what if I am? Is it not a Lord’s privilege?”_

_“Lords have many privileges.”_ Theon’s hands fumble with the lacings on his breeches. The memory feels so real. He takes his cock in his hand, furiously pulls at it. Robb’s eyes, his hair. Jon’s lips. _“How about you come over here and claim them?_ ”

“Did you wish to see me, m’Lord?” 

The girl is in the doorway. She’s holding wine. Her innocent expression falls to Theon’s groin. His hand is still in his breeches. She flushes. She looks anywhere but at Theon. _Am I that disgusting?_

“Come here.” 

“I’m sure m’Lord wishes to – would like to be alone--”

“If I wanted to be alone, I wouldn’t have ordered you up here, would I?” 

She’s hesitant, but she comes to him. She has to, for Theon could cut off her head if she refused. _No – no, that isn’t right._ She comes to him because that’s what all the women do. He’s Ironborn, you see – and all the girls love Ironborn cock. _”I could have had my pick of the girls tonight, Snow. Dripping, they were._ ”

“M’lord, can I pour you some wine? Or—”

“No wine. Sit on my lap.” Why the fuck does she look so terrified? It’s not meant to be like this. He pushes her around a little, using her arse to rub against his cock. “Feel that? That’s what being Ironborn means.” She doesn’t speak, and this is irritating. She looks away. She sniffs. “What are you crying for, you stupid slut? You’re _lucky_. All the girls in Winterfell dreamed of this. Fucking touch it, you frozen little bitch—”

He holds her wrist so tightly it’ll bruise later. He doesn’t want to see those bruises. They disgust him. He closes his eyes, forces her hand into his breeches. His cock hangs lifelessly at his thigh. She takes it into her hand, for Theon could cut off her head if she doesn’t. She says, “an iron cock, yes, m’Lord” and Theon hits her, hard across the face, because his cock is as limp as seaweed and he knows she’s fucking mocking him. 

“What do you fucking expect?” he shrieks. “You’re nothing! Nothing!”

And when Theon throws a goblet, which smashes on the wall behind her, she leaves too. 

But Winterfell remains. 

Theon doesn’t sleep in his old chambers. (He doesn’t sleep.) He tells the twenty or so men who’ve stayed behind that it’s because the castle is his now. He is the Lord of Winterfell and should take the Lord’s chambers. He does not say it’s because his old room feels hollow and sick, like a rotten walnut. It took Theon a long while to open the door. He hoped the walls would swell with Jon and Robb. He thought the room would protect him, that he’d never have to leave it. He thought he would be able to close his eyes and nothing could touch his heart again. 

He was wrong. 

But he can’t go back. Theon wonders, _what is “back”?_

Back to Pyke? He can’t go back to Pyke: to that rock, hanging about his neck to drag him under the waves, to drown him; to men who make a joke of him and to women who won’t call him Prince; to a father who is disgusted by him. 

Theon Turncloak can’t go back to Robb’s army. It isn’t even the beheading that bothers him. No, that would be a welcome relief. It’s Robb’s eyes that bother him, and Theon sees them everywhere. They torture him as he tosses fitfully in Lord Eddard’s bed (he hasn’t slept for days). There is so much hatred in those eyes. Surely Robb would understand? He was his Tully mother’s son. _Family, duty, honour._ Theon had a duty to his family. He fulfilled that duty. _You had a duty to Bran and Rickon, and to Winterfell. They were your family, and your home._ Robb’s eyes watch him wherever he goes. This is Robb’s castle. _I had a duty to the Iron Islands, and to Balon Greyjoy, King of the Iron Islands. What else could I do?_

But what about your honour, Theon Turncloak? What of that?

Theon can’t go back to the beginning. When is the beginning? He tells himself, _back to the beginning is being ten and watching the ships come home. Where are my brothers, Father?_ Balon Greyjoy could have said no. He could have kept his last son, raised him to be truly Ironborn. But Balon Greyjoy doesn’t want Theon, because Theon is not his dead brothers. Theon is Theon, Theon is alive, and Theon is a sore, miserable disappointment.

If Theon could go back – really, truly go back – he’d go to that time when Jon hated him. He would die to make it real. He’d endure it a thousand times over – a million lonely, angry nights – if just once he could feel Jon’s lips on his, that first time they both stopped pretending and started to _live._ Jon had kissed him because Robb told him to. Theon had been terrified. _How does Robb know? Had Ros told him? Were they making a hideous joke of him?_ Theon remembers Robb’s eyes as they were then, not the eyes that watch him in Winterfell now. He remembers them blue-black as a storm with lust. As raging as the sea. 

_”Go on, Jon. He wants it. Look at his groin. Hard as steel.”_

Theon’s mouth is dry. He can only keep it up with Ros. With the things she says to him. About Jon. And Robb. And here are Jon and Robb. Robb is looking at his groin. His erection strains against his breeches so hard it hurts. Theon does the only thing he can do. He smirks. _”Hard as iron, Robb.”_

_”You’re not on Pyke now, Greyjoy.”_ Jon. _”You’re in Winterfell, and Winterfell is ours.”_

_”Yours, is it, bastard?”_

Robb’s Lord voice. _”He wants you so much, Jon, that he hates you for it. Hates you for making him feel.”_

_”I do not.”_

_”’You do not’ what? Want him, or hate him?”_

Theon can’t cope. _”Robb – stop—”_

_”Jon. Kiss him.”_

_”Snow, if you fucking come near me, I will—”_

_”Oh, he really does want it. Do it, Jon. Kiss him. Claim him. Show him how to make all that hate and anger and resentment go away. You’ve needed it for so long, Jon. Give in.”_

It had never been like that first time, ever again afterward. It couldn’t have been; Robb would never have allowed it. Theon and Jon had really hurt each other at some points, but they’d never been in real danger. Robb saw to that. He told them what to do, how to be. He told them when they were going too far. He told them when they weren’t going far enough. Theon had stared at the bruises on his wrists for weeks, watched Jon intently as he winced, fastening his breast plate. _Those deep scratches on Jon’s chest that lay underneath his armour, that nobody but the three of them knew about._ Theon’s half-blackened eye. The cratered gouges in Jon’s arse from Theon’s fingernails. _The hatred has to leave you before anything else can grow in its place_ , Robb explained, _like weeds strangling a flower_. Like a snowdrop emerging through melting ice, at the first dreams of spring. 

Theon would do anything to hurt like that again. To _feel_ those things: terror, and belonging, and burning hate, and fierce protectiveness, and love. _That_ was the beginning.

And then afterwards, over time, they’d learned how to be with one another. It hadn’t been easy. Robb never let Theon and Jon hurt each other again, but he’d let them hurt him. _Begged_ them to hurt him. Theon and Jon had both struggled with that – at first, anyway – until Robb had helped them realise it was how to show him they loved him. Jon struggled with Theon’s filthy mouth – at first, anyway – until he found ways of shutting Theon up. Jon had such a beautiful cock. Theon struggled to let Jon please him the way Jon pleased Robb, and he struggled to praise him for it – at first, anyway – until Theon found his own methods of making Jon feel validated. And Robb struggled with balancing the two of them – at first, anyway – until the time that Theon and Jon both fucked him at once, and afterwards as the tendrils of sleep overtook him, he’d murmured that he wished the Others would take them both, but that he loves them, oh, he _loves_ them, _he loves them—_

Theon shivers in the darkness. Robb Stark and his fucking eyes, everywhere in this fucking castle, and Jon Snow and his fucking _absence._

The fucking hornblower won’t shut up. It’s been days. 

“They want you to know that you are surrounded,” says Luwin.

“Yes, I know that.”

Why does it have to be Maester Luwin? Here, at the end of everything? Theon had tried it on with that wildling whore once. Luwin had barked at him like he was a naughty little boy. And now Theon was Lord of Winterfell, Luwin was still barking at him, _looking_ at him with those fucking judging eyes. 

“The Night’s Watch is an old order, an honourable order—”

 _Jon is there._ Jon is there and he, Theon, could go there. Castle Black could be his home, cold and lost at the top of the world, leagues from Pyke’s kraken tentacles, wrapped about his throat, wrapped around his heart, squeezing, choking. At the Wall, even Winterfell would no longer exist. Nor the – the _things_ he did there. Jon wouldn’t reject him like Robb did. Surely, he wouldn’t? Robb had never had to feel abandonment, loneliness, loss. But Jon had, and Jon would know. He’d understand it all. Jon would never leave him. 

_But, Theon Turncloak, what about all the things that you have done? Would Jon even recognise you? Could you face him and watch him turn away from you?_ Theon would rather Jon killed him.

“There are opportunities at the Night’s Watch, Theon—”

“Opportunities for Jon Snow to cut my fucking throat—”

_I’ve done a lot, haven’t I. Things I never imagined myself doing. I fucked a whore so I could say I was no longer a maiden. I fucked my brothers because I loved them more than this earth and it was the only way I could let them know. I fucked my sister’s hand to prove who I am. And then I fucked everything around me – Robb and Bran and Rickon, and Ser Rodrick, and those two farm boys – because that’s what I do: I fuck things. I fuck things before they fuck me. And now I have fucked Winterfell, because if I can’t have it, I’ll fuck it for everybody else, and I cannot go back. I can’t go back to any of it._

Maester Luwin sighs. “I have known you many years, Theon Greyjoy. You’re not the man you’re pretending to be. Not yet.”

Theon digs his fingernails so deeply into his palms that he knows he’ll draw blood. In his mind, miles hence, Jon turns his face from him to look away, out beyond the Wall. Robb is standing in the doorway of his tent, staring out, and then he too is gone, lost within. _Everyone leaves, eventually._

“You may be right,” says Theon, and the hornblower sounds. “I’ve come too far to pretend to be anything else.”


	6. Ramsay Bolton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Six: Ramsay Bolton**
> 
> _When his lord is not with him (long hours pass; not enough hours pass) Theon thinks of things that are clever things, things to please his lord. He thinks how lucky he is to belong to somebody who loves him so much. Theon knows it is clever to think this because belonging to his lord makes his body hurt and sometimes bleed, which usually would not be a lucky thing. But Theon is clever and he understands that if you belong to somebody you give them yourself, and all parts of yourself, and this is what he can do for his lord. Occasionally he even begs his lord to take things such as his finger, because it hurts, and then afterwards when he cries, his lord sometimes holds him gently in his lap until he loses too much blood, and passes out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NOT NICE. Honestly, don't read it; it squicked me out and I wrote the damn thing. I even went back and tried to tone Ramsay down. Lots of psychological torture and non-con stuff in here, as you'd expect as it's Ramsay and he's like that in fucking canon.

His master comes at night. Theon knows this because it is dark. He is proud of himself for knowing such a thing. His lord said that it was very clever to notice that there is no light and that he should be proud of himself for knowing such a thing, and what did Theon think that meant?

_“That -- that it is night, my lord?”_

_”Very good, Reek! It is the long night. At least, it is for you.”_

His Lord master’s teeth bring light to the darkness. Theon knows that they are white – a dazzling white – but in the firelight they are the colour of copper blood. Theon doesn’t like how it makes him feel when his lord smiles. Theon knows smiles mean lies and pain. He is clever and remembers that from the time before he was his lord’s. Theon tries to remember other things from then in case it pleases his master, but it is like trying to find a shadow inside a shadow, so after some time – Theon doesn’t know how long – he stops trying to remember. He stops remembering to try. 

And now his lord likes to make Theon smile. His lord strokes his face gently and says, _”are you happy here, Reek? You have such a lovely smile”_ and Theon says, _”yes, my lord, so very happy.”_ And his lord grasps his face and squeezes tightly and whispers, _”then smile and show me how happy you are.”_

But it hurts Theon to smile because of his teeth and where his lord took them away, so sometimes he cries when he smiles (particularly if his lord squeezes too tightly) and that just makes his lord smile even more. 

When his lord is not with him (long hours pass; not enough hours pass) Theon thinks of things that are clever things, things to please his lord. He thinks how lucky he is to belong to somebody who loves him so much. Theon knows it is clever to think this because belonging to his lord makes his body hurt and sometimes bleed, which usually would not be a lucky thing. But Theon is clever and he understands that if you belong to somebody you give them yourself, and all parts of yourself, and this is what he can do for his lord. Occasionally he even begs his lord to take things such as his finger, because it hurts, and then afterwards when he cries, his lord sometimes holds him gently in his lap until he loses too much blood, and passes out. 

But mostly his lord leaves him on the stone floor until he loses too much blood, and passes out. Theon knows that it is clever of his master to leave him on the stone floor until he passes out, because the stone floor is cold and unyielding so when Theon is allowed into his master’s lap to cry and to pass out, it feels as though he is on a cloud, and his master is so warm, and his voice is soft and his touch is gentle, and Theon is happy. 

Theon is so grateful for being allowed to fall asleep like that, safe and soothed in his lord’s arms. Theon likes it when his lord says kind things like _”there there, Reek,”_ and other things like _”you did so well today, Reek. You begged so nicely.”_ Nobody had ever told Theon things that were so kind before. Or at least, Theon didn’t think they had. There is something about his master’s body being so close that Theon loves. Like he has felt it in some dream. 

Theon knows it is clever to notice those lovely things because there are so many horrible things too, that it would be easy to forget the lovely things. But Theon is clever, because he knows it is important to make his lord master happy, so he remembers those lovely things whenever his body tries to collapse or his mouth tries to say _”please, no, don’t, my lord”_ , as his master does not like it when he says that. Or sometimes, his master likes it too much, but Theon knows he should not think about those times because then he will hate his master like he used to, and that is not a clever thing.

_No, no. Don’t think about the times before. He will know. Ramsay will know you hate him. He will hurt you, each time worse. He will know if you think._

Once, his lord took him out of the room where it is always night up to another place (there was no light there either, but it had candles and a fireplace and his lord master’s bed) and he was allowed to sleep there. Theon used to wear a scratchy overshirt then, but it interfered with his lord’s sleep so it was discarded, and now Theon doesn’t wear anything much at all, not even when he’s in the darkest, coldest room, or when he is allowed to sleep with his master’s hounds. His lord says he prefers Theon without clothes. He lets Theon wear a cloth around his – around his waist, to cover him up there. 

It is warm in his master’s bed. Not like in the room of always night, or in with the hounds where Theon fears he will be torn and eaten, or that worse will happen when his master isn’t there to protect him. Damon and Alyn and Yellow Dick are worse than the hounds. They want to eat him as well, Theon knows it. Eat him, and other things too. His master told him that if he didn’t behave, wasn’t a good Reek, that he’d let them. 

But then he had taken Theon into his chamber and Theon had hid in his bed and said _don’t let them do anything to me, master_ and Ramsay had soothed him so kindly that Theon was terrified. Ramsay says “come here,” and his lord pulls him close, wraps his arms around his thin waist, rests his chin on Theon’s shoulder. Theon’s backside nestles against Ramsay’s groin. His master’s breath is hot on his ear, so hot it makes Theon shiver. 

“You _reek,_ ” Ramsay whispers. A smile is in his voice.

“I am sorry, my lord—”

His master Ramsay’s fingers skim his hips. It is uncomfortable to lie on his side because his hips are bony now, and they dig into the bed and jut out. His master’s touch is light at first, but then it tightens on his thighs. Theon gasps in pain. His skin seems so thin, like parchment. Theon feels his lord master smile. His lips are on Theon’s throat. Theon imagines how red they must look, pressed against Theon’s grey neck.

“Shh. I’m not going to hurt you.”

 _You are already hurting me, master._ “Th – thank you, my lord.”

“Have you ever heard the rumours of what men do in the North, Reek?”

“N—no, master.”

Ramsay presses into Theon from behind. He is hard. His voice is quiet and careful. Theon is afraid.

“They say, Northmen take wards as captives during wars – take them home to their castles – and do unspeakable things to them. Make boy whores out of them. Did you know?”

_Don’t move away from his touch. He will know that you hate him. He will know if you think._

“N—no I did not know, master.”

“You’re one of the lucky ones, aren’t you, Reek? Nobody would want you for their ward. Not the state you’re in. Revolting. Repugnant.” Ramsay’s tongue curls into the curve of Theon’s thin neck, underneath his ear and jaw. “Aren’t you grateful that you belong to me?”

“Yes, master. Very grateful.”

“You see, I don’t mind that you are… _incomplete,_ ” says Ramsay, and slides a clammy hand between Theon’s gaunt thighs, cupping the absence there. “I love you, all the same. Do you love me, Reek?”

Theon shivers in the darkness. “Yes, my lord.”

He is grateful to his master for touching him so carefully, and he is even more grateful to his master for doing it from behind in the bed, so that he cannot see Ramsay’s face. Theon closes his eyes and he realises immediately that this is not a clever thing, for when his eyes are closed, he sees his master’s wild eyes and red, fat lips and his copper-blood teeth clearer than if it were day. Ramsay’s hand glides from Theon’s crotch around to his backside. His fingers play at the meeting of Theon’s arse cheeks and Theon hisses in fear.

“You were a ward, once,” whispers Ramsay. “You must be used to this. Or shall I take it to mean that your master isn’t good enough for you, Reek? Is that it?”

“No, my lord—”

Ramsay pushes his dry finger into Theon’s unprepared hole and Theon’s mouth betrays him. “ _Ah!_ My lord! My – my lord, _please._ Anything but that – I beg you—”

“You cry and wail at one little finger, yet you’d let those Stark cunts have you whenever they wanted? _Disgusting._ You are nothing but a whore, do you know that, Reek?”

Why is master being so cruel? _Because he is always cruel. Even when he is kind. He is cruellest when he is kindest._ Why does he say the Stark cunts have had him? _There was a time before he was Theon’s lord master which he can’t remember. He can’t remember. Can he remember? It hurts to remember. Like trying to find a shadow within a shadow. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with bleak._

Ramsay twists his finger deeper. He is seeking it out, Theon’s lord master is: seeking out that place that makes Theon squirm and wail. Theon knows his master will find it. Theon knows his master is aware of exactly where it is. And Theon knows Ramsay won’t touch it until the very last moment. Theon knows because it is always this way.

Theon gasps. “My lord, I—”

“What are you, Reek? Say it. Tell me what you are.”

“A – a whore, master.”

Ramsay’s breath hitches. “Good. So very good, Reek. Now, roll over onto your stomach.”

Theon rolls over onto his stomach. He likes this because his face is buried in the furs and he can see nothing. He feels a hand snake over his backside. He feels the cold trickle of oil between his cheeks. He hears a wet, slapping sound and knows that it is his master’s – his master’s _thing._

“Some men find it difficult to lie so very flat on their stomachs when they are aroused,” says Theon’s lord master Ramsay, “because their cocks are somewhat problematic. Thankfully, you are no man, Reek.” 

_There was a time before. Before he was his master’s Reek. Before he was this – this monster. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with freak. It hurts to remember. What was he, before? Remember to try…to try to remember._

“Hold yourself open, Reek. Your master wants to see the place you made yourself a whore for the fucking Starks.”

_Was he a whore for the Starks? Was this part of before he was his lord’s? It hurts to remember. It hurts to hold himself open, because of where his master took his fingers. Theon knows that to take somebody’s fingers is a cruel thing. Should he hate his master?_

“If you do not hold yourself open at once, Reek, I shall leave one single digit on each stinking hand of yours and I will make you fuck yourself with them until you bleed, or they fall off. Whichever takes longer.” 

Theon cries into the furs but he is clever, for he does it silently. 

And he holds himself open right until Ramsay has finished, even when his master is very rough. Theon is pleased because his master does not flay any part of him, or take any item, which means Theon has done well. His master even holds him as he falls asleep, whispers that he has been such a good whore. And Theon knows he must be dreaming because he says a word that he doesn’t understand, but that feels strangely familiar in his mouth, and when he says it, his master chuckles into the darkness and says _”well, well, Reek. That is interesting information.”_

Theon has come to know that “interesting” is a word to be afraid of, like “game” and “treat”. He shivers as Ramsay’s breath ghosts his ear.

“Whores – or so they say, for I personally am not one – come to know the greatest of secrets from men’s mouths, as they spend. Did you know that, Reek?”

_From before. Theon knows that from before. I have lain with lords who would betray every bannerman in a breath the minute they start to come. I have sucked the cocks of Sers who’ve spilled their battle plans as quickly as they spilled their seed. I hear everything, my Prince. Do you know whose name you moaned as your seed filled my cunt?_

“N – no, master.”

“And you are no man, are you, Reek? You can’t spend, either. Such a shame. But!” Ramsay sits upright in bed, clutches Theon’s thin arm in excitement. “But! You can yet spill that mouth of yours. Tell me your name.”

“Reek, my lord – my name is Reek.” _Reek, Reek, it rhymes with weak. Tell him your name from before. From before you were your master’s. No – no, do not tell him. He will hurt you. He will know if you think. What was his name before?_ It was an important name. He did things for that name, things he never imagined himself doing. Theon tastes salt in the air; salt and water. Or are those his tears? “My name is Reek.”

“Very good, Reek. Now answer me one more question, for I am just _dying_ to know. Why is the last waking word of a miserable, cockless, disgusting creature like you anything other than ‘master’?”

Theon’s heart pounds. “I – I don’t know, master— I was dreaming, I was sick…I don’t know what I said—”

“Oh, yes you do, you fucking cunt. Tell me, Reek: why did you say _’Robb’_?”

 _Robb._ Robb, Robb, Robb—

“I don’t know—”

“ _Reek,_ ” Ramsay says knowingly, “come on, now. Don’t tell me that you can’t remember. It is such a lovely story. Did your mother and father tell you bedtime stories when you were a boy?” Ramsay pouts his fat pink lip. “Oh – of course they didn’t. You never had a mother or a father, did you, Reek? Nobody to tell you stories?”

Theon trembles. “Please, Master. I don’t like – I don’t want to hear stories.”

“There was once a lord of a great castle, whom everybody loved and said was a wonderful lord. Except, he went and got himself killed and his sword-swallowing lordling son tried to avenge him, but whilst he did so, he was brutally betrayed by the little boy-bitch he called a brother. This cunt tried to take the castle from under the lordling’s nose, but because he was too stupid, he failed. His men deserted him, his father disowned him, even his sister left him to rot after seeing what he’d become.”

“Master -- _please_ \--”

“Say please one more time and you’ll wish you hadn’t. And do you know, the lordling king forgot all about the cunt who betrayed him, right up until the day that better men put a hundred arrows in him and cut his throat.”

 _I never loved you, you privileged and painted little Lordling of Winterfell, with your inherited name and castle and bannermen and precious family._ Theon shakes with pain, pain greater than from his fingers or from his teeth or from the other place that Ramsay butchered. _Robb,_ he calls into the shadows of his mind. _Jon. Where are you both? What have I done? Jon didn’t leave me, not really – Robb didn’t send me away, not really – what have I become? And Robb, murdered at the Red Wedding, butchered by the Freys. I should have been with him. Where was I? I should have died with him._

“Robb is gone, Reek,” says Ramsay slowly. He traces a finger up Theon’s arm. Theon doesn’t move. Theon cannot move. Theon doesn’t dare to even think. “Everybody you ever loved has gone. Everybody who loved you – as few as they were – have gone. You drove them away, Reek. You drove them away because you are disgusting. You are lucky that I love you so.”

Theon nods, because it is a clever thing, to agree with his lord when he is being so kind. “Yes master, so very lucky.”

“Father says I am to take a bride,” continues Ramsay. “You will come to know her well, I think. Try not to get jealous, my Reek; don't worry, I will let you watch as I rape her. You can even rape her too. You will enjoy that, when you find out who she is. I am a kind master, after all.” He pauses, frowns. "Although, you shall have to do it with your fist, for you no longer have a cock." 

Theon wonders who he is, or what he is, why he is still alive, why he had ever been born.


End file.
